{"id":20624,"date":"2020-04-04T09:18:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T05:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/?p=20624"},"modified":"2020-04-04T09:18:45","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T05:18:45","slug":"wto-issues-new-report-on-worldwide-trade-in-covid-19-medical-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wto-issues-new-report-on-worldwide-trade-in-covid-19-medical-products\/","title":{"rendered":"WTO Issues New Report On Worldwide Trade In COVID-19 Medical Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World Trade Organisation, WTO, Secretariat has released a new report on trade in medical products critical for the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report traces trade flows for products such as personal protective products, hospital and laboratory supplies, medicines and medical technology while providing information on their respective tariffs.<\/p>\n

Trade in medical products which have now been described as critical and in severe shortage during the COVID-19 crisis totalled about US$ 597 billion in 2019, accounting for 1.7 percent of total world merchandise trade according to the report. The ten largest supplying economies accounted for almost three-quarters of total world exports of the products while the ten largest buyers accounted for roughly two-thirds of world imports.<\/p>\n

Commitments made under various WTO negotiations and agreements have helped slash import tariffs on these products and improve market access, with the average tariff on COVID-19 medical products standing at 4.8 percent, lower than the 7.6 percent average tariff for non-agricultural products in general. The statistics show that 52 percent of 134 WTO members impose a tariff of 5 percent or lower on medical products. Among them, four members do not levy any tariffs at all: Hong Kong, China; Iceland; Macao, China; and Singapore. The report, however, also identifies markets where tariffs remain high. Tariffs on face masks, for example, can be as high as 55 percent in some countries.<\/p>\n

Key points Germany, the United States and Switzerland supply 35 percent of medical products; China, Germany and the United States export 40 percent of personal protective products; Imports and exports of medical products totalled about US$ 2 trillion, including intra-EU trade, which represented approximately 5 percent of total world merchandise trade in 2019; Trade of products described as critical and in severe shortage in the COVID-19 crisis totalled about US$ 597 billion, or 1.7 percent of total world trade in 2019; Tariffs on some products remain very high. For example, the average applied tariff for hand soap is 17 percent and some WTO members apply tariffs as high as 65 percent; Protective supplies used in the fight against COVID-19 attract an average tariff of 11.5 percent and go as high as 27 percent in some countries.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Trade Organisation, WTO, Secretariat has released a new report on trade in medical products critical for the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report traces trade flows for products such as personal protective products, hospital and laboratory supplies, medicines and medical technology while providing information on their respective tariffs. Trade in medical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20626,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20624\/revisions\/20626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}