Trade Therapy : Deepening Cooperation to Strengthen Pandemic Defenses
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the upsides and downsides of international trade in medical goods and services. Open trade can increase access to medical services and goods (and the critical inputs needed to manufacture them), improve quality and variety, and reduce costs. But excessive concentrat...
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Washington, DC: World Bank
2022
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| Online Access: | https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099427406022240207/idu035ccddd30ce3b0465f0a97d0f2ce539a2f7f http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37494 |
| Summary: | The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the upsides and downsides of international trade in medical goods and services. Open trade can increase access to medical services and goods (and the critical inputs needed to manufacture them), improve quality and variety, and reduce costs. But excessive concentration of production, restrictive trade policies, supply chain disruptions, and regulatory divergence can jeopardize the ability of public health systems to respond to pandemics and other health crises. This report, coordinated by Nadia Rocha and Michele Ruta at the World Bank and Marc Bacchetta and Joscelyn Magdeleine at the WTO, provides new data on trade in medical goods and services and medical value chains; surveys the evolving policy landscape before and during the pandemic; and proposes an action plan to improve trade policies and deepen international cooperation to deal with future pandemics. |
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