 Trade Policy in Burundi: Reform Without Political StabilityThe World Economy, 2004, vol. 27, issue 9, 1363-1376 Abstract: This paper evaluates Burundi's progress with trade policy reform, by comparing earlier analyses of Burundi's trade policies undertaken in the 1980s with that of the WTO's recent Trade Policy Review. Since the mid‐1980s Burundi has been trying to reform its trade and macroeconomic policies against the background of continuous socio‐political tensions and periodic outbreaks of violent tribal conflict. A ‘then and now’ comparison allows us to assess both the extent of the trade reforms and of the economic return to those reforms. It is evident that there has been a significant rationalisation and simplification of trade policy. Burundi has eliminated most quantitative import restrictions and reduced the average level and range of its tariffs. The scope for allocative distortions, undesirable redistributive effects and for impediments to investment and growth has been substantially reduced. However, a return to reform in terms of export growth or diversification and of overall economic growth is not discernible yet. This is unsurprising, given the scale of the economic disruption. Sustained socio‐political stability, among other things, will be required to induce the investment in human and physical capital needed for a positive return to trade policy reform. Date: 2004 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:worlde:v:27:y:2004:i:9:p:1363-1376 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article The World Economy is currently edited by David Greenaway More articles in The World Economy from Wiley Blackwell |
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