Ambiguity in Data Availability (Preferential Trade Agreement vs MFN) - Tariff Types

[marcel_...@brown.edu]

Hi all,

I have a (likely) simple question about a small ambiguity in the Data Availability Table. I am interested in  tariff data that does take into account Preferential Trade Agreements. Thus, I am not willing to use years when PTA's data are not available. The problem is that I cannot identify those years in the table. For example I see that data for PTA's are available  when I see the entry " M,P(1)". I believe this means that MFN and PTA data are available, and there is one PTA being considered. A few questions then arise:

1 - Does  " M,P(1)" mean that the country has one and only one  PTA with other countries, or that means that there are data concerning one PTA, but actually this country can have more PTAs?

2 - I never see "M,P(0)" in the data availability table. That means that I can never identify the years when the data are "complete", in the sense that they consider all the PTA's a country has (even though "all PTA's" may mean "no PTA at all"). That said, is there any way I can know when the data is complete?

Thanks a lot!

[Samuel Munyaneza]

1 - Does  " M,P(1)" mean that the country has one and only one  PTA with other countries, or that means that there are data concerning one PTA, but actually this country can have more PTAs?

M, P(1) means that data for one PTA exist. However, the country may have more than one PTA.

2 - I never see "M,P(0)" in the data availability table. That means that I can never identify the years when the data are "complete", in the sense that they consider all the PTA's a country has (even though "all PTA's" may mean "no PTA at all"). That said, is there any way I can know when the data is complete?

The only way to know whether all PTAs are covered is to compare with what PTAs exist for the country. We don't have this information in UNCTAD TRAINS database but you could refer to the Global Preferential Trade Agreements Database https://wits.worldbank.org/gptad/database_landing.aspx

best regards

Sam

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