Tariffs, which are taxes on imports of commodities into a country or region, are among the oldest forms of government intervention in economic activity. They are implemented for two clear economic purposes. First, they provide revenue for the government. Second, they improve economic returns to firms and suppliers of resources to domestic industry that face competition from foreign imports. Tariffs are widely used to protect domestic producers' incomes from foreign competition. This protection comes at an economic cost to domestic consumers who pay higher prices for import competing goods and to the economy as a whole through the inefficient allocation of resources to the import competing domestic industry. Therefore, since 1948, when average tariffs on manufactured goods exceeded 30 percent in most developed economies, those economies have sought to reduce tariffs on manufactured goods through several rounds of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs Trade (GA TT). Only in the most recent UruguaySpecific Tariffs A fixed fee levied on one unit of an imported good is referred to as a specific tariff. This tariff can vary according to the type of good imported. For example, a country could levy a $15 tariff on each pair of shoes imported, but levy a $300 tariff on each computer imported.
Ad Valorem Tariffs The phrase ad valorem is Latin for "according to value", and this type of tariff is levied on a good based on a percentage of that good's value. An example of an ad valorem tariff would be a 15% tariff levied by Japan on U.S. automobiles. The 15% is a price increase on the value of the automobile, so a $10,000 vehicle now costs $11,500 to Japanese consumers. This price increase protects domestic producers from being undercut, but also keeps prices artificially high for Japanese car shoppers.
Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) include all the rules, regulations and bureaucratic delays that help in keeping foreign goods out of the domestic markets. The following are the different types of NTBs:QuotasA quota is a limit on the number of units that can be imported or the market share that can be held by foreign producers. For example, the US has imposed a quota on textiles imported from India and other countries. Deliberate slow processing of import permits under a quota system acts as a further barrier to trade.EmbargoWhen imports from a particular country are totally banned, it is called an embargo. It is mostly put in place due to political reasons. For example, the United Nations imposed an embargo on trade with Iraq as a part of economic sanctions in 1990.Voluntary Export Restraint (VER)A country facing a persistent, huge trade deficit against another country may pressurize it to adhere to a self-imposed limit on the exports. This act of limiting exports is referred t o as voluntary export restraint. After facing consistent trade deficits over a number of years with Japan, the US persuaded it to impose such limits on itself.Subsidies to Local GoodsGovernments may directly or indirectly subsidize local production in an effort to make it more competitive in the domestic and foreign markets. For example, tax benefits may be extended to a firm producing in a certain part of the country to reduce regional imbalances, or duty drawbacks may be allowed for exported goods, or, as an extreme case, local firms may be given direct subsidies to enable them to sell their goods at a lower price than foreign firms.Local Content RequirementA foreign company may find it more cost effective or otherwise attractive to assemble its goods in the market in which it expects to sell its product, rather than exporting the assembled product itself. In such a case, the company may be forced to produce a minimum percentage of the value added locally. This benefits th e importing country in two ways it reduces its imports and increases the employment opportunities in the local market.Technical BarriersCountries generally specify some quality standards to be met by imported goods for various health, welfare and safety reasons. This facility can be misused for blocking the import of certain goods from specific countries by setting up of such standards, which deliberately exclude these products. The process is further complicated by the requirement that testing and certification of the products regarding their meeting the set standards be done only in the importing country. These testing procedures being expensive, time consuming and cumbersome to the exporters, act as a trade barrier. Under the new system of international trade, trading partners are required to consult each other before fixing such standards. It also requires that the domestic and imported goods be treated equally as far attesting and certification procedures are concerned and that there should be no disparity between the quality standards required to be fulfilled by these two. The importing country is now expected to accept testing done in the exporting country.Procurement PoliciesGovernments quite often follow the policy of procuring their requirements (including that of government-owned companies) only from local producers, or at least extend some price advantage to them. This closes a big prospective market to the foreign producers.International Price FixingSome commodities are produced by a limited number of producers scattered around the world. In such cases, these producers may come together to form a cartel and limit the production or price of the commodity so as to protect their profits. OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an example of such cartel formation. This artificial limitation on the production and price of the commodity makes international trade less efficient than it could have been.Exchange ControlsCon trolling the amount of foreign exchange available to residents for purchasing foreign goods domestically or while travelling abroad is another way of restricting imports.Direct and Indirect Restrictions on Foreign InvestmentsA country may directly restrict foreign investment to some specific sectors or up to a certain percentage of equity. Indirect restrictions may come in the form of limits on profits that can be repatriated or prohibition of payment of royalty to a foreign parent company. These restrictions discourage foreign producers from setting up domestic operations. Foreign companies are generally interested in setting up local operations when they foresee increased sales or reduced costs as a consequence. Thus, restrictions against foreign investments add impediments to international trade by giving rise to inefficiencies.Customs ValuationThere is a widely held view that the invoice values of goods traded internationally do not reflect their real cost. This gave ris e to a very subjective system of valuation of imports and exports for levy of duty. If the value attributed to a particular product would turn out to be substantially higher than its real cost, it could result in affecting its competitiveness by increasing the total cost to the importer due to the excess duty. This would again act as a barrier to international trade. This problem has now been considerably reduced due to an agreement between various countries regarding the valuation of goods involved in a cross-border trade.
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