Ireland's UN SDGs - Goal 10 Reduced Inequalities 2021

SDG 10.a.1 Proportion of tariff lines applied to imports from least developed countries and developing countries with zero-tariff is available from EU trade agreements.

Trade agreements

EU Trade Agreements are outlined by the European Commission.

At present, the EU has in place the largest trade network in the world, with over 40 individual agreements with countries and regions.  These agreements facilitate the trade of products and services between the EU and its outside partners.

New agreements are still being added to the list and older agreements are being reviewed and updates negotiated with the partner countries.

Tariff elimination

Some of the agreements focus mainly on tariff elimination:

• Association Agreements with eight Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Occupied Territory and Tunisia)
• Agreements with Mexico and Chile
• Economic Area Agreements with Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway
• Customs Unions with Turkey, Andorra and San Marino
• Stabilisation and Association Agreements with six Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North-Macedonia and Serbia) containing additional provisions to prepare for their progressive integration into the EU market
• Agreements with Switzerland and Faroe Islands

More comprehensive market access

Others include much broader commitments on opening up trade in goods and services, as well as on investments, public procurement, competition, subsidies and regulatory issues:

• Canada
• Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama)
• Colombia, Ecuador and Peru
• Singapore
• South-Korea
• Vietnam

These agreements aim to develop stronger rules-based and values-based trade regimes with the trading partner countries concerned and include dedicated provisions on trade and sustainable development.

The most recent ones also have specific provisions to address challenges faced by modern economies and societies, such as the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan, which includes a chapter on small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as dedicated provisions on information and telecommunications services, and e-commerce.

Legal approximation

A specific type of agreements concentrate on the tightening of economic links between the EU and its neighbours by bringing their regulatory frameworks closer to EU law, notably in trade-related areas. This is true for instance for the agreements with:

• Georgia
• Moldova 
• Ukraine

Development

Another special type of agreements have an explicit development objective.  They are asymmetric trade agreements, with the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific countries) side liberalising around 80% of trade over a period of 15 to 20 years, while the EU grants duty-free, quota-free access from day one.

For the time being, most such agreements cover trade in goods and development cooperation.  The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the Caribbean also includes provisions on services, investment and other trade-related topics.

Under these agreements, the EU provides substantial trade-related assistance to support partner countries in implementing the agreements, strengthening export competitiveness and building economic infrastructure.  The countries concerned belong to the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions:

• West Africa (Ghana, Ivory Coast)
• Central Africa (Cameroon)
• Eastern and Southern Africa (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zimbabwe)
• Southern African Development Community (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa)
• Cariforum (Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago)
• Pacific (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Solomon Islands)
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Iraq
• Kazakhstan

SDG 10.b.1 Total resource flows for development, by recipient and donor countries and type of flow (e.g. Official development assistance, foreign direct investment and other flows) is published in the Dept. Foreign Affairs' Official Development Assistance Annual Report 2019 and the OECD report OECD Development Co‑operation Peer Reviews IRELAND 2020.

SDG 10.c.1 Remittance costs as a proportion of the amount remitted, information is published by the World Bank.

The Target for this SDG indicator is: ‘Target 10.c: By 2030, reduce to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5%’.

The Definition in the UN metadata document for SDG 10.c.1 is as follows:

The target includes two components. 

The first component is that transaction costs for migrant remittances should be 3% or less by 2030.  This transaction cost should be intended as “Global average total cost of sending $200 (or equivalent in local sending currency) and expressed as % of amount sent”.  This indicator is readily available and published on a quarterly basis by the World Bank in the Remittance Prices Worldwide database, which covers 365 country corridors, from 48 sending to 105 receiving countries.

The second component is to eliminate corridor where cost is 5% or higher.  This should be intended in the sense that it should be possible for remittance senders to send money to the beneficiary for an average cost of 5% or less of the amount sent.  For this purpose, it should suffice that in each corridor there are at least 3 services, meeting a defined set of service requirements (including service quality, reach etc), for which the average is 5% or less.

The World Bank report on Remittance Prices Worldwide Quarterly (RPW) for quarter 4 2020 monitors remittance prices across all geographic regions of the world.  Launched in September 2008, RPW monitors the cost incurred by remitters when sending money along major remittance corridors.  RPW is used as a reference for measuring progress towards global cost reduction objectives, including the G20 commitment to reduce the global average to 5%, which is being pursued in partnership with governments, service providers, and other stakeholders.

Since Q2 2016, RPW covers 48 remittance sending countries and 105 receiving countries, for a total of 367 country corridors worldwide.  RPW tracks the cost of sending remittances for four main RSP types: Banks, MTOs, Mobile Operators, and Post Offices.  MTOs (Money Transfer Operators) include both traditional providers and innovative/fintech players.  On average, 13.3 providers per corridor are tracked.

This Report uses data from RPW’s most recent release to analyse the global, regional, and country specific trends in the average cost of migrant remittances.

Key Findings

• The Global Average recorded a decrease from 6.75% in Q3 2020 to 6.51% in Q4 2020.
• The International MTO Index experienced a decrease over the quarter to 6.56% in Q4 2020, from 6.81% in Q3 2020. This is the third consecutive quarter in which this figure has been recorded below 7%.
• The Global Weighted Average decreased to 4.82 percent in Q4 2020, from 5% in Q3 2020. This is the first quarter in which this figure has been recorded below 5%.
• The Global SmaRT Average for Q4 2020 was recorded at 4%.
• The Digital remittances index decreased from 5.29% in Q3 2020 to 5.11% in Q4 2020.
• South Asia remains the lowest cost receiving region, with an average cost of 4.88%.  Sub Saharan Africa remains the most expensive region to send money to, recorded at 8.19% average cost in Q4 2020.
• Banks remain the most expensive type of service provider, with an average cost of 10.73%.
• Mobile money, as the instrument to fund the transaction and as the means to disburse, has been the least costly instrument consistently.  In addition, the y-o-y decline in the average cost of sending via mobile money was 25 ppt, while the same for receiving via mobile money was recorded as 146 ppt in Q4 2020.
• Bank account transfers, as the instrument to fund the transaction, have experienced a 17 ppt decline in average cost between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020.
• The proportion of corridors with average costs of less than 5% has increased considerably since Q1 2009 (from 17% to 39% in Q4 2020).