Indermit Gill, the chief economist of the World Bank Group, has a brilliant essay in this week’s issue of The Economist. He focuses on how countries have, over time, increased their use of technical non-tariff measures to limit trade rather than applying tariffs.

You ask anyone in South Africa’s agriculture about the challenge of phytosanitary barriers in China, India, and greater Asia, and soon you are in a long conversation about various experiences. 

While South African farmers can produce high-quality products and export to the EU, you find that in some countries, regulators raise all kinds of health and environmental barriers, amongst other things, to limit trade.

Gill writes that:

“A new standard used as a trade barrier can, at least for a while, cut off trade entirely. Technical non-tariff measures have overtaken tariffs as the dominant drag on trade. Between the establishment of the World Trade Organisation in 1995 and 2021, the standard tariff rates that WTO members apply to one another fell by nearly half. Governments, however, simply switched to a different instrument of restraint: non-tariff measures went on the upswing, offsetting much of the decline in tariff rates.”

He adds that:

“High-income economies remain the biggest implementers. Unfortunately but understandably, many developing countries have also jumped on the bandwagon. No wonder that in 2024 the WTO received nearly 6,500 notifications of technical barriers and new health and safety rules covering trade in food, animals and plants—a ten-fold increase from 1995.”

Worryingly, even the EU, one of South Africa’s major trade partners, has attempted to use non-tariff barriers on South African citrus. For example, the EU recently used non-tariff barriers by alleging a “False codling moth“, a citrus pest, in South Africa and requiring that citrus products be kept at certain temperatures before accessing the EU market.

This happened even though South Africa has already treated the products to eliminate the risk of such pest infestations. This was a subtle form of protecting Spanish farmers, who are also major citrus producers within the EU market.

In the African continent, we continue to see non-tariff barriers on South African maize in countries such as Kenya. 

We also have another case of the EU, USA, and UK banning South African red meat exports based on concerns about our veterinary and diagnostic systems.

So, in essence, Gill is correct, non-tariff barriers are a major challenge in global trade. And South Africa’s agriculture sees the impact of these barriers.