Assessing the Impact of Sanitary, Phytosanitary and Technical Requirements on Food and Agricultural Trade : What Does Current Research Tell Us?

In last decades, international trade has been characterized worldwide by a significant opening up, mainly based on the reduction of tariffs. However, simultaneously there has been an increase in non tariff measures (NTMs) notified to the WTO. Within this category they are technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS). The increasing importance of these requirements highlights the need to attend to the effects that SPS/TBT measures have on the flow of imports and exports. In order to address this matter, a literature review was made to consider the latest research in the field specifically in the case of food and agricultural sector. Finally, as an overall result the existence of a “dual” effect was shown regarding the relationship between SPS/TBT and food and agricultural international trade which depends on the trade-off between implementation costs and the benefits of a better positioning in an gradually more demanding market