Suchergebnisse

Pakistan's import trade in the private sector is regulated by
an elaborate licensing system. It is complex in its structure and
detailed in its operation. The structural complexity of the system
arises from the simultaneous operation of different types of licences
which seek to regulate the import sector in microscopic detail. It
regulates the volume of imports, the composition of imports, and, in
certain cases, even the sources of imports. This elaborate system is
administered by the Chief Controller of Imports and Exports (CCI&E),
in the Ministry of Commerce, who is the principal licensing authority in
the country. His task is to assess import needs and then to allocate
scarce foreign-exchange resources earmarked for the private sector. In
arriving at his decisions he is guided, on the one hand, by the latest
market intelligence reports regarding the price trends of imported
commodities as the indicators of what the market actually needs, and on
the other hand, by official views of what the market should need, and in
what proportion, to conform to the broader scheme of ensuring an optimal
allocation of domestic resources. The formulation of the semi-annual
Import Policy, which is the sum-total of all these varied and complex
decisions, is, therefore, a momentous undertaking, and occupies a
central position in the broader strategy of economic planning.

Import policy has played a particularly important role in
Pakistan's economic planning. The amount and allocation of imported
machinery and raw materials have directly affected the nature and pace
of both industrial and agricultural development. The composition of
imports has had a very significant effect on internal relative prices,
which, in turn, essentially determine the allocation of investment in
the private sector. Finally, imports have provided both the government
(in the form of tariffs) and the private sector (in the form of profits)
access to potential savings, which to a large extent have been converted
into investment during the last decade. While import policy should not
be viewed completely in isolation, it is sufficiently important to merit
careful and intensive study. Over the past several years, substantial
research has been carried out on two aspects of Pakistan's import
policy: the description and analysis of the institu¬tional arrangements;
and the development of reasonably accurate statistics. In terms of
institutional arrangements, three contributions are especially worthy of
mention. Naqvi [22] has presented a detailed description of the import
licensing system, indicating the agencies involved and the major
problems faced by them,

During the last decade or so there has been considerable interest in the nature and effects of protection policies on the economic performance of developing countries, and a number of attempts have been made to measure the levels of protection afforded local activities. It is, of course, desirable that such studies should take adequate account of the system of protection in its entirety, and this includes a consideration of direct (i.e. quantitative) as well as indirect (i.e. tariff) restrictions of imports.

This paper examines two disputes brought by the United States and New Zealand in response to a series of import sanctions for agricultural products imposed by the Indonesian government to promote food self-sufficiency. We document the heterogeneous effect the sanctioning measures had on Indonesia's partners. We argue that Indonesia's import licensing regimes acted as high, sometimes prohibitive, fixed cost of exporting. Frequent changes of regulation provided additional challenges and increased costs of exporting. These properties determined the differential impacts of Indonesia's measures where some sustained significant market losses while other large exporters, in particular Australia, following a short decline strengthened market position and export levels.

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of corruption. The main purpose of the research is to examine the impact of global economic/financial crisis on corruption. We focus on manufacturing firms in the EECA region and examine their activities including bidding for government contracts, applying for an operating license, and applying for an import license. Systematization of the literary sources and approaches for solving the problem indicates that bribes got significantly smaller after the crisis ended. The relevance of this scientific problem decision is that governments' efforts to improve the overall business environment when facing an economic/financial crisis help reduce corruption. Investigation of corruption in the paper is carried out in the following logical sequence: First, the size of bribes for securing government contracts is examined. Then, the prevalence of bribery during import license application process is examined. Finally, the prevalence of bribery during operating license application process is examined. Methodological tools of the research methods were non-parametric tests that compare the years of 2007 and 2010-2014. The research object is manufacturing firms in the EECA region because they were included in the BEEPS IV and BEEPS V manufacturing surveys. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that governments' actions during an economic or financial crisis affect the size and prevalence of bribery. The research results can be useful for government officials that plan on reducing corruption in their region or country.