Globalization and Competition from China and India
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Imports from China and India Tariffs on imports from China and India are high in MENA countries: both countries export products to MENA that are subject to aboveaverage import protection (figure 9.4). In Morocco and Tunisia, the difference between average tariffs and those applied to China and India is substantial. Indeed, among the signatories of the Agadir Agreement (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia), only Egypt has bilateral tariffs on imports from India that are below the national mean. China and India also export products to MENA countries that are subject to tariff peaks (that is, very high tariffs on individual products). The tariff schedules of the Agadir countries show a considerable number of such peaks (defined as three times the tariff average). At the Harmonized System six-digit level of aggregation, the national tariff schedules for 2006 show 214 domestic tariff peaks in Tunisia, 58 in Morocco, 23 in Jordan, and 21 in Egypt. In Morocco and Tunisia all of the tariff peaks apply to imports of agricultural products. Many tariff peaks are prohibitively high, but in some of the concerned product categories, there have been imports from China or India (figure 9.5). Unless the transactions benefited from temporary concessions or exemptions, these findings suggest that there are Figure 9.4 Tariffs in China, India, and Selected Countries in the Middle East and North Africa, 2006 (bilateral import-weighted average of applied import duties in percent)
nunber of domestic tariff peaks with imports from China or India
12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Eygpt, Arab Rep. of
Jordan
Morocco China
India
Source: World Bank staff based on UNCTAD Trains and UN Comtrade databases. Note: Data are from 2006 or latest data available.
Tunisia