Multilateral Trade Liberalisation and Developing Countries: A North-South Perspective on Agriculture and Processing Sectors

This paper assesses the impact of further trade liberalisation on prototypical groups of developing countries, with special attention to the linkages between trade and development of the agri-food sector. The findings of this paper are based on a new country classification approach which uses a combination of income- and trade criteria. We distinguish between developing countries whose producers compete with OECD producers in primary and/or processed agricultural products versus those countries that are not competing. We are also able to single out countries which are potentially able to develop their agricultural sector and those that will in all likelihood never be able to do so. In a second step, a quantitative study is conducted of the impact of further liberalisation on developing countries. Here, we are able to pinpoint diverging (and common) interests among (groups of ) developing countries, based on our novel country classification. The quantitative assessment uses the GTAP modelling framework as a tool, with a recent version (5.2 pre-release) of the GTAP database. Partial agricultural trade liberalisation is expected to generate positive economic effects in general. An important exception are the low-income exporters of primary agricultural commodities, which see a fall in net-exports as a result of stiffer competition their key markets.