Towards the Modelling of Changes in New Zealand’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures

Non-tariff measures (NTMs), both sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBTs), are widely understood to influence trade flows. Modelling the effect of these measures has long been a challenge due to the absence of detailed information on individual country regulations constituting non-tariff measures. However, current efforts to improve data in this area, including a multi-country project led by UNCTAD, will help to fill this gap and facilitate improved future modelling and analysis. The current paper uses preliminary NTM data for New Zealand, from the UNCTAD-led project, to explore potential impacts of expanding the number of countries having access to export fruit and vegetables to New Zealand. Our focus is the regime established under the Biosecurity Act 1993, whereby animal and plant products that may present a biosecurity risk for the introduction of pests and diseases cannot be imported until a risk analysis assessment, consistent with international standards, has been completed. This process, triggered by a request from a country interested in exporting the product, involves the development of an import health standard that aims to mitigate the risk associated with importing that product. Specifically, we propose indices to measure the extent to which potential fruit and vegetable imports from individual countries are constrained by the absence of import health standards for some of their exports. We then use these indices to calculate estimated bilateral trade if import health standards were extended to cover all countries and implement these in the GTAP framework to obtain overall changes in fruit and vegetable imports to New Zealand.