when considering NTMs. The increment is lower in Indonesia, of 3 percentage points, from 4.47% to 7.47%. In Malaysia, the uniform tariff increases from 3.01% to 23.8% when considering NTMs.

China has bound 100% of its tariff lines at the WTO, while Indonesia and Malaysia have bound 96.6% and 83.7% of their products, respectively. The total overhang shows that there is room to increase the MFN applied tariffs in Malaysia and Indonesia. The binding rates are 60.06 and 30.42 percentage points, respectively, higher than the applied MFN rates. In contrast, China has no overhang.

The levels of protection in the EU are lower than the ones observed in EAP. The simple average MFN applied tariff is 4.263% and the weighted average is 2.514%. Trade policy barriers are high in products such as tobacco and cigars, which have tariffs of 74.9% and 57.6%, respectively. However, imports from Eurasian countries are concentrated in petroleum oils and unwrought nickel, for which trade policy barriers are almost negligible. The TTRI and OTRI indexes show low levels of protection since the EU is ranked in positions 11<sup>th</sup> and 16<sup>th</sup> , respectively, with equivalent uniform tariffs of 1.79% and 6.38%, respectively. The countries have bound 100% of their tariff lines at the WTO, and have a total overhang of 0.04 percentage points.

An analysis of the tariff structures of China, Korea, Japan, and the EU suggests that these countries impose higher levels of protection for products such as live animals, meat & edible meat, fish, dairy products, products of animal origin, to mention a few (Table 5). This is an interesting fact that highlights the benefits of diversifying the production to more sophisticated and technologically intensive goods, which are less exposed to the effects of trade protection. To analyze the implications of protection for Eurasian countries, we incorporate the export structure of these economies into the analysis. In particular, we calculate the average tariff that exports from the region will have to pay.<sup>5</sup> The tariff is a weighted average of the import duties applied to each 6-digit Harmonized System product category. The weights represent the share of a country’s total exports to the world of a product on total exports to the world of a group of products that includes the good. To conduct the analysis, we classify products into three groups: i) live animal, meat & edible meat, fish, dairy products, products of animal origin, live tree & other plants, and edible vegetables & fruits; ii) petroleum; and iii) the remaining products.<sup>6</sup> Table 5 presents the results of the average tariffs applied by the EU and EAP countries on exports of Eurasian countries. Data on tariffs is available at 6 digits.<sup>7</sup>

> 5 To conduct the analysis, we employ MFN tariffs in the case when the exporter is a WTO member and non-MFN tariffs otherwise.

> 6 The Harmonized System tariff lines corresponding to group i) are HS 01-08 and to group ii) are HS 2709-2719.

> 7 The ideal situation would be to have information on MFN and non-MFN tariffs for all the trading partners. However, WITS presents information on non-MFN tariffs only for China and Japan. Therefore, to conduct the analysis, we employ, when possible, information on MFN and non-MFN tariffs. Otherwise, we assume that countries impose the MFN tariffs to all the nations independently of their affiliation to the WTO. This is a limitation, and one should be aware of the fact that the levels of protection faced by non-WTO members could be higher than the ones displayed in the analysis. In cases where information on tariffs is not available at 6-digits, we employ averages at 4-digits.

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