Impact of Non-Tariff Measures on Trade in Mauritius
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Author | André C Jordaan |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0015732516681873 |
| Subject Matter | Commentary |
Impact of Non-Tariff
Measures on Trade in
Mauritius
André C Jordaan1
Abstract
Gains of international trade are largely based on the absence of trade restrictions
among trading countries. The perceived advantage of a steady decrease in
tariffs worldwide was unfortunately progressively replaced by non-tariff
measures (NTMs) globally. The impact of these NTMs is, however, not exactly
clear as it appears in sometimes a much disguised manner. NTMs seem to be
very important in limiting the flow of imports to trading countries, although
accurately measuring the effects of it is fairly difficult. The purpose of this
article is to estimate the impact of NTMs on the volume of trade in Mauritius.
The 20 major export destinations of Mauritius are analyzed to determine the
impact of tariffs and NTMs on the exports from Mauritius. Using the trade
freedom scores as proxy for trade restrictions, it has been established that
Mauritius’ volume of export flows are much lower due to the NTMs applied by
its importing trading partners.
JEL: F14, F18
Keywords
Mauritius, non-tariff measures, international trade, trade restrictions
Introduction
In a global world of increasing economic liberalization and a common tendency
to reduce trade restrictions, determining the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs)
on a country’s trade is crucial. This is even more important when these countries
are relatively small, trying to create a base for improving their economic stance in
Foreign Trade Review
52(3) 185–199
2017 Indian Institute of
Foreign Trade
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0015732516681873
http://ftr.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
André C Jordaan, Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
E-mail: andre.jordaan@up.ac.za
1 Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
Commentary
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