Trade Policy Presentations PROJECT - TEACHING NOTE

Trade Policy Presentations PROJECT - TEACHING NOTE

Advanced Trade Policy Course

16 January – 10 March 2017

1Objectives

i.  Enhance participants' capacity to analyse trade-related information from a variety of sources and identify key policy elements.

ii.  Strengthen participants' ability to formulate trade policies aimed to increase living standards taking into account a range of different and possibly divergent considerations.

iii.  Give participants a greater appreciation of the importance of formulating trade policies through an interactive review process.

1.1.The Trade Policy Presentations Project (TPPP) is one of the core modules of the Advanced Trade Policy Course. The TPPP seeks to strengthen the analytical skills, critical thinking and mental flexibility required to formulate good trade policies, i.e., policies that help increase overall living standards. This requires examination of a range of options circumscribed by different and possibly divergent considerations involving economic principles, trade-related rules and political factors. Framed by these considerations, ATPC participants are expected to analyse trade-related information from a variety of sources, identify the key policy elements, and formulate recommendations for improved policies. As trade policies are often formulated at the "emotionally charged" intersection of the economic, legal and political arenas, the TPPP also emphasizes the role of subjecting policy recommendations to repeated examination both to test the recommendations and to build public support for them.

2position papers

2.1.The first stage of the TPPP involves participants becoming familiar with an economic sector in one of four selected WTO Members. The main information sources for this will be the Secretariat Report prepared for the relevant Trade Policy Review, complemented by the other documents prepared for the same Review, namely: Government Report; Chairperson's Concluding Remarks; Minutes of the meeting; and Compilation of questions and answers. Participants are also encouraged to use information from other sources, e.g., reports from IMF, World Bank, OECD, United Nations or government agencies.

2.2.Participants will be organized in four groups with six participants each (G6). Within each G6 group, participants will examine the same selected sector in one WTO Member but each participant will play a different role and prepare an independent position paper.

2.3.Each participant will play, respectively, one of the following six roles:

·  "producers", and prepare a position paper presenting policy recommendations aimed at raising the profitability of the private enterprises operating in the sector.

·  "consumers", and prepare a separate position paper with policy recommendations for the sector aimed at maximizing consumer welfare, (i.e. maximizing the benefits that physical persons or companies derive from the consumption of the goods produced by enterprises in the sector),

·  "labour", and prepare a position paper with recommendations aimed at securing higher wages for workers, safeguarding security of job tenure and increasing employment opportunities in the sector.

·  Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT), and prepare a position paper with recommendations that will advance the MIT's objectives of promoting and developing the country's industrial sector, stregnthening regional and multilateral institutions, and improving market access for the country's goods and services.

·  Ministry of Finance (MOF), and prepare a position paper with recommendations that support the MOF's functions of setting spending priorities and funding possibilities regarding all public sector agencies with the aim of reducing the existing deficit in the general budget.

·  Prime Minister's Office (PMO), and prepare a position paper with recommendations that reflect the PMO's responsibilities for, among others, advising the Prime Minister on electoral political activities including party politics, overseeing policy and implementation across all areas, co-ordinating public administration, intergovernmental relations, and reducing the burden of government regulation.

2.4.Position papers should be no longer than one-page (about 600 words). These papers should clearly separate different recommendation from each other, for example by using a bullet point format, and provide enough context to make it possible to understand the recommendation's rationale. Recommendations should take the form of a proposal to maintain, eliminate, revise or introduce a particular policy measure. Recommendations should be made for the key trade-related measures affecting the particular sector under consideration, and from the specific perspective and narrow focus of a single role (consumers, producers, labour, MIT, MOF or PMO).

3policy reports

3.1.The next TPPP stage requires consumers, producers, labour, MIT, MOF and PMO to come together in the relevant G6 group to prepare a policy report putting forward recommendations for improvements to the trade policies affecting the sector in question. The three ministries (MIT, MOF, PMO) acting together are deemed to be "the government".

3.2.Policy reports should be no longer than one-page (about 600 words). These reports should be drafted by the participants in each G6 group working in close collaboration with each other. However, when within a G6 group consensus about a particular recommendation is not possible, the views of the government shall prevail, with the PMO having ultimate responsibility for recommendations affecting government policy or its implementation. Recommendations that do not reflect a consensus within the G6 should allude to the dissenting positions and to the reasons for adopting a particular non-consensual recommendation.

3.3.The recommendations in the report should clearly describe the trade policy area being targeted, for example government regulation, tariffs or other taxes, subsidies, infrastructure, intellectual property, or the investment framework. The report should also indicate which ministry or government agency will be responsible for implementing each measure, the specific statutory amendments required to implement the measure, and the relevant WTO Agreement(s) that must be taken into account.

3.4.Although the recommendations in the report will address measures in a specific sector, such recommendations should have the ultimate overall aim of helping to enhance the living standards of the population at large. Because living standards are anticipated to increase when productivity rises, the recommendations should aim, in the first instance, to boost productivity (which may be proxied as value added per worker), The report should thus explicitly explain how each recommendation is expected to increase productivity by, for example, increasing competitive pressures (e.g., exposing producers to world prices), improving the allocation of resources (e.g., sending the right price signals) or shifting resources to higher valued uses. When a recommendation is not expected to increase productivity, the report should explain how in spite of this the measure is anticipated to enhance the living standards of the population at large,

3.5.The above should be complemented, to the extent possible, by a qualitative assessment of the costs and benefits to relevant individual groups (e.g., producers, consumers, labour, exporters, importers), as well as by a mention of any significant political-economy considerations. The set of recommendations should be internally coherent, be based on a solid understanding of WTO and other trade rules, and reflect a good appreciation of the type of strategies more likely to help increase the living standards of the population at large.

4oral presentations

4.1.As a follow up, each G6 group will make an oral presentation of the recommendations in its report to ATPC participants and a panel of discussants made up of trade policy experts in the Secretariat. The presentation will consist of four parts: a 5 minutes statement by producers, a 5 minutes intervention by consumers, a similar 5 minutes intervention by labour as well as a 10 minutes intervention by the government (MIT, MOF, PMO).

4.2.The presentations will be followed by an open discussion where discussants from the WTO Secretariat and ATPC participants will have the opportunity to make comments and ask probing questions about the relevant position papers and policy reports.

5lessons learned document

5.1.The last stage of the TPPP will involve each G6 group preparing a lessons learned document of no more than one-page (about 600 words). This document should describe the insights that each G6 group picked up into how trade policy may be best formulated. The document should identify what strategies and procedures may contribute to the successful formulation of trade policy in "real life", as well as problems that may be encountered and how they could be solved. Everyone in each G6 should contribute to the preparation of this document and the group should strive to agree on the lessons learned. When this is not possible, the document should briefly describe each significant divergent view and its rationale, and identify the party holding such view (producers, consumers, labour, MIT, MOF or PMO).

5.2.All position papers, trade policy reports, and lessons learned documents will be posted in the Virtual Classroom promptly after the relevant deadline for submission. Deadlines and other details concerning the TPPP timetable are provided in the separate document "Trade Policy Presentations Project – Module Outline".

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