Tag: WTO

South-South Preferential Trade Agreements in Services – Economic Potential Lying Idle

| 4 October 2016
Trade, Blog | Tags: Services Trade, WTO
Imagine the Central African Republic and Cameroon investing in the compatibility and quality of their railway tracks, and eventually merging their railways altogether. The producers in the Central African Republic would get easy access to the sea, while Cameroon’s railway and ports would benefit from ... continue reading

Paris to Nairobi

| 23 December 2015
Trade, Blog | Tags: Climate, India, TPP, TTIP, WTO
Trade negotiations didn’t have the happy ending of COP-21. But they portend major changes for the WTO. This month has witnessed two important events whose outcomes point to different conclusions for the future of multilateral cooperation. While the Paris Agreement belied pessimistic expectations and produced ... continue reading

At Whose Service? Jobs and Services Trade in Developing Countries

| 17 November 2014
Trade, Blog | Tags: Development, Employment, Poverty, Services Trade, WTO
Services-led Employment Growth? Creating jobs to match their ever increasing, relatively young labor forces is probably the biggest challenge that developing countries are facing in the medium term. Reducing unemployment is perhaps the most effective tool to achieve a wide range of development goals, such ... continue reading

Asia’s Poor Increase by One-Billion Overnight

| 16 September 2014
Trade, Blog | Tags: G20, IMF, Poverty, Trade, WTO
The news has been exceptionally bad recently: carnage in the Middle East, race riots in the US, ongoing recession in the Eurozone and Japan, tension in the South China Sea, high youth unemployment virtually everywhere, the Ebola epidemic and so on and so depressingly forth. ... continue reading

Bali Boost: WTO Lives, Snatched for Now From Jaws of Defeat

| 23 December 2013
Trade, Blog | Tags: WTO
It would be churlish not to congratulate the WTO and especially Roberto Azevêdo, its dynamic director-general, for successfully passing a “Bali package” at the Indonesian resort well past the 11th hour on 7 December. The WTO Doha Round, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, ... continue reading

Resource Scarcity, Export Restrictions and the Multilateral Trading System

| 10 April 2013
Trade, Blog | Tags: Commodities, Protectionism, WTO
The turn of the millennium marked a shift towards higher commodity prices and greater price volatility, as a result of high demand for natural resources from emerging economies combined with export restrictions and financial speculation. A recent Chatham House report highlights that, over the past ... continue reading

“What’s it for?” – Moral responsibility in an age of globalization

| 2 December 2012
Trade, Blog | Tags: Financial Markets, G20, WTO
Several years ago, I was approached by an Indian student following a lecture I had given on globalization and the interdependence of markets through cross-border flows of goods, services, ideas, knowledge, science and people. His question was: “But what’s it for?” In the late 20th/early ... continue reading

Resisting the perils of protectionism

| 31 July 2012
Trade, Blog | Tags: G20, Protectionism, WTO
We live in highly perilous times. The resurgence of protectionism and the breakdown of the tenuous global trade peace represent some of the greatest perils. On the basis of current trends, such an outcome seems inevitable. It is simply a question of when. While alarmists ... continue reading