it details the important trade measures currently affecting imports and exports of agrofood products including price based instruments eg tariffs and other import duties and export taxes quantitative restrictions eg import quotas and export bans and regulatory requirements eg licensing and quarantine arrangements multilateral regional and bilateral trade relations are also discussed an important objective is to keep domestic retail prices of essential strategic commodities relatively stable in order to alleviate poverty and avoid antagonising the urban population for importcompeting products such as rice and soybeans this objective is usually sought through a combination of policy measures in particular low tariffs and quantitative restrictions on imports