Nontariff Measures in the Philippines: A Preliminary Analysis Using Incidence Indicators

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As several countries have reduced tariff rates, other forms of regulatory measures that impact on trade have proliferated. These regulations, collectively known as nontariff measures (NTMs), can be imposed on imports and exports. Using descriptive indicators, NTMs could be measured with coverage ratios, frequency indices, and prevalence scores. Across the different government agencies, it has been found that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources both implement the most number of NTMs with 422 and 103 NTMs, respectively. Moreover, both agricultural goods and manufactured goods have been shown to be highly regulated at 92.2 percent and 93.9 percent, respectively, albeit agricultural goods have a higher prevalence score (19.8) compared to manufacture goods (8.9).