The European Commission's second on Trade and Investment Barriers Report, which describes the progress achieved in dismantling barriers to the markets of six strategic economic partners, recognises some success stories in the removal of certain trade barriers, but also underlines the overall persistence of barriers for European business to access key markets.

The European Commission published its second Trade and Investment Barriers Report which shows some success stories in the removal of certain trade barriers, such as in India where trade barriers were fully removed, but also underlines the overall persistence of barriers for European business to access key markets, such in China on investment catalogue and IT security issues. The report describes the progress achieved in dismantling barriers to the markets of six strategic economic partners - China, India, Japan, Mercosur, Russia and the US. The first Trade and Investment Barriers Report was published in March 2011.

In addition, the report also identifies six new priorities of barriers to trade and investment such as, China: national security review mechanism for mergers and acquisitions involving foreign investors and export financing and subsidies; India: National Manufacturing Policy; Brazil: tax on industrial products (IPI) and import procedures for textiles and clothing; and Argentina: restrictions in reinsurance services.

On the other hand, the report highlights a recent trend in emerging economies where industrial policies contain trade-restrictive elements. These often take the form of local content requirements (such as in investment policy and government procurement), overly burdensome standardisation and conformity assessment requirements, which discriminates against foreign products, measures having an equivalent effect to quantitative import restrictions, and export restrictions particularly applied to raw materials.