Trade Therapy (eBook)

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has exposed the upsides and downsides ofinternational trade in medical goods and services. Open trade can increase access tomedical services and goods-and the critical inputs needed to manufacture them-improvequality and variety, and reduce costs. However, excessive concentration of production,restrictive trade policies, supply chain disruptions, and regulatory divergence can jeopardizethe ability of public health systems to respond to pandemics and other health crises. TradeTherapy: Deepening Cooperation to Strengthen Pandemic Defenses, coordinated by NadiaRocha and Michele Ruta at the World Bank and Marc Bacchetta and Joscelyn Magdeleineat the World Trade Organization, provides new data on trade in medical goods and servicesand medical value chains, surveys the evolving policy landscape before and during thepandemic, and proposes an action plan to improve trade policies and deepen internationalcooperation to deal with future pandemics.As the COVID-19 pandemic lingers, the focus of policy action is on the response, whichincludes actions aimed at removing bottlenecks and providing government support topromote equitable access to vaccines. As the emergency subsides, the focus shouldshift to prevention and preparedness. Steps to close information gaps-building on theMultilateral Leaders Task Force on COVID-19, the ACT-Accelerator, and the open markets,for example-by negotiating tariff reductions on medical goods and greater market accessin services should take priority. Also important are measures to improve the efficiency ofmarkets, which include harmonizing regulation through mutual recognition or equivalenceof standards and creating international standards for essential medical goods, inputs,and production processes. Agreement on a crisis rulebook to be deployed during anemergency-including clear and agreed limits on export policy flexibility and shared rules onintellectual property flexibilities-would provide a more solid policy foundation to addressfuture challenges.