Consequences of the application of technical barriers to import in Latin America
measures is purely protectionist of national industries, considering a greater economic growth
(Aguilar, 2021; Londono & Baena, 2020). Conversely to what was explained, in most cases the
NTBs or PSMs are applied in the region’s markets stemming from political decisions which should
not influence the market and, in contrast, should spread a free market ideology with the purpose
of encouraging the consumption of the inhabitants due to the excess of national and foreign
offerors, resulting in the growth of national economy as long as there are enough competitive
sectors in the market (Baena, 2018a; Bernal, 2018).
Another relevant factor in regards to their implementation are the effects of the quality of
the products that are commercialized in the national market (Esteve et al., 2020; Petrova, 2020).
Such is the case that some authors like Rodriguez (2014), Sarmiento (2018) & Tello (2020) estate
how the application of NTBs to restrict the consumption of imported products is beneficial for the
general public, as they prevent low or untrustworthy quality products from entering the country,
understanding that these products harm consumers and producers due to unfair competitiveness
since they count with extremely low prices in comparison to national productions (Garcia, 2017;
Hidalgo, 2018; Rojas et al., 2022). Notwithstanding, other authors differ on this idea about the
adoption of non-monetary barriers, commenting that when national producers witnessed a lack of
competitiveness in similar products, they tend to build monopolies or oligopolies, or simply
decrease costs by maintaining their prices, lowering the quality of the product (Marquez et al.,
2
022; Tello, 2022; Torres, 2017).
An example of the discrepancies found regarding the analysis of the effects of technical
obstacles to trade is demonstrated in the works of Chen & Mao (2020) and Vanegas and Baena
2019). They express that the application of these measures during specific time periods, as during
(
the COVID-19 pandemic, was sound concerning the restriction of entry of food products to the
markets because of the great uncertainty during this time; due to the little knowledge about the
virus’ propagation, the measures protected the population’s health. However, the converse is
mentioned by Krugman et al. (2018) & Irwin (2020). The last state that limiting trade between
countries during a crisis may be counterproductive for the economy, harming trade activities, since
during difficult times, it is imperative to maintain as much as possible a stable economic activity
to avert worsening the inhabitants’ and the countries’ situation.
In respect to the political aspect of the implementation of these measures, it is based on the
protection of industries and social wellbeing. In this light, governments apply the NTBs to avoid
the entry in large quantities of foreign products, which means a lower exit of currency to cover
transportation fees, insurance, documentation and the product per se (Olha et al., 2021; Quiroz et
al., 2022). States seek for a way to anticipate these exits and for the money to stay in national
territory so it keeps flowing through the economic cycle (Alvarado, 2019; Betancourt, 2022;
Chavez, 2019). Meanwhile, once new trade regulations are imposed, different commercial sectors
or groups are affected as not only their products are restricted, but companies also have to
implement shortages in insurance, transportation, importers and local traders who perform their
activities through foreign products. If all these groups stop their activities in sequence, there would
be an increase in the country’s unemployment levels and thus a recession in the economic cycle,
conditioning even farther a State’s situation (Baena, 2020; Martin, 2022).
Additionally, it was evidenced how the implementation of NTBs in a region with such
close relations - as it is in Latin America’s case - could be damaging for its development in the
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Revista de la Universidad Internacional del Ecuador. URL: https://www.uide.edu.ec/
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