Quantifying non-tariff measures in international agricultural trade: a tariff equivalent of technical barriers to trade on African horticultural exports to the European markets

Abstract

Fresh food and agricultural products from sub- Saharan Africa meet few tariff barriers because of preferential market access granted to ACP countries through Lomé and Cotonou Act. However, non-tariff barriers are still serious impediments to trade. This paper focuses more specifically on technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) on horticultural exports from Kenya and Zambia to France, Germany, the Netherlands and United-Kingdom. Using an extension of price-wedge method that takes into account imperfect substitution (on demand side) and differences in factor endowments (on supply side), we provide a tariff-equivalent of a wide range of TBT. Preliminary results show that the tariff-equivalent of TBT is very high for Kenyan green beans exports (more than 56%) while it is low for Kenya’s exports of peas and avocados and Zambian exports of peas (less than 10%). However, there are no large differences between EU importing countries.Armington elasticity of substitution, price-wedge method, tariff-equivalent, International Relations/Trade,