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Law360 (July 2, 2021, 5:23 PM EDT) -- The World Trade Organization called on members to improve how they collect COVID-19-related trade data, saying "it remains difficult" or sometimes impossible to obtain the necessary information to ease the distribution of vaccines and other products needed to combat the pandemic.
The WTO secretariat explained Thursday that information on the trade of products for combating COVID-19 is available, but nowhere near detailed enough to inform policy-making decisions.
"Members currently lack, and unless some action is taken, will continue to lack, the right tools to have a detailed and precise measurement of the products that matter, thereby running the risk of having to take decisions with vague or insufficient information," the WTO said in a brief information note.
The WTO partly blamed the information gap on the Harmonized System, the six-digit code system that participating countries use to classify goods. Under it, broad swathes of products are grouped under the same code, including the COVID-19, influenza and chickenpox vaccines, which are all classified as "vaccines for human medicine."
Relying on the codes will likely lead to "gross overestimates" in the global trade of essential items, according to the note.
The WTO also blamed the non-standardized tariff subcategories that members devised, noting that Canada listed face shields for hazardous work and Kenya listed floats for fishing nets under the same international code for "plastic face shields covering more than the eye area."
"Even if the data were available at a more detailed level, without a consistent approach for the establishment of national subdivisions, it would still not be feasible to obtain an accurate and reliable global estimate for targeted products at a level beyond the HS six-digit level," the WTO said.
The organization prescribed a handful of "prompt and decisive" actions members could take to fill the information gap, such as requiring trade officials to record pandemic trade information themselves.
The WTO also suggested a series of medium-term measures for members. Among others, it proposed multilateral monitoring of a common list of essential products, and that public-private partnerships collect as much trade-related information as possible.
"It is critical that members find a workable approach as soon as possible in order to be able to start compiling the relevant data for 2021," the WTO said.
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
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