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Strengthening African Agricultural Trade: The Case For Domestic Support Entitlement Reforms

Africa Agriculture

WORKING PAPER 07
Reform of domestic agriculture support in the form of financial subsidies has long been a vexed issue. One relatively promising area for reform is to address WTO members’ entitlements to deploy domestic support, rather than aiming to cut actual expenditures per se. Specifically, reducing entitlements would diminish members’ rights to increase domestic support payments in future. Such reductions are best targeted at those subsidies that distort trading partners’ production and trade incentives, rather than at subsidies generally regarded as either relatively benign, or minimally distorting to support domestic farmers and the agricultural economy.

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Foreign Minister Wang Yi Makes a 9th ‘first trip of the year’ to Africa

China

Dr Lauren A. Johnston is Visiting Senior Lecturer, Adelaide University Institute of International Trade and Founding Director, New South Economics. China continues to prioritize its relations with Africa. As a result, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, has continued with a longstanding Chinese tradition of making an African country the first foreign visit of the year. This op-ed provides analysis of which countries were visited, and why, as well as how the schedule fits with China’s development strategy in Africa.

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Why Australia fails to understand the EU

EU

Richard Pomfret, Jean Monnet Chair in the Economics of European Integration at the Institute for International Trade, 2017-2020. Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Adelaide. Australian political leaders have long held a simplistic and misleading understanding of the European Union, due to over-reliance on reports from London for coverage of EU affairs. This op-ed argues Canberra needs to develop a more diversified and modern understanding of the EU project, and its value to Australia.

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Strengthening African Agricultural Trade: The Case For Domestic Support Entitlement Reforms

Africa Agriculture

15th December, 2021. The University of Adelaide's Institute for International Trade (IIT) launched its latest research report on Strengthening African Agricultural Trade: The Case For Domestic Support Entitlement Reforms. At the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) twelfth Ministerial Conference at the end of 2021, WTO members are again considering how best to reform domestic support (subsidies) to agriculture.

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The WTO is back in business?

Crisis WTO Appellate

Industry Professor Jane Drake-Brockman, Institute for International Trade, The University of Adelaide and Founding Director of the Australian Services Roundtable, writes for the Council on Economic Policies (CEP) urging immediate more widespread support for the multilateral trading system.

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Can Germany’s New Coalition Modernize the Country to Meet 21st Century Challenges?

 Reichstag Building Germany

Andreas Freytag, Professor and Chair of Economic Policy, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena and Visiting Professor with IIT.
Since Wednesday, the traffic light coalition has been in place and the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been elected. This will mark the end of a long Merkel era and the beginning of a new era under Social Democratic leadership.

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Back from the Brink! The WTO gets on with Serious Business.

Photos: ©WTO/Jay Louvion

Anthony Patrick Dela Pena Chua is Lead Staffer to both the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) Philippines and the Philippine Services Coalition.
Jane Drake-Brockman is Founder and Director of the Australian Services Roundtable and a co-convenor of the Asia Pacific Services Coalition.
Some matters are too important and the benefits too great for the global trading community, to let another postponement of the WTO Ministerial Conference get in the way of timely joint action.

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Trade, Technology and Security: Exploring the Linkages.

military data room

WORKING PAPER 06
Over the past decade China has developed into a technological competitor during a period of increased geopolitical tensions with its major trading partners. This has resulted in increasing securitization of trade and technology as well as growing techno-nationalism. This working paper explores the linkages between trade, technology and security, focusing on application of national security provisions, how the latter are justified or in breach of existing international trade rules, and potential solutions for balancing the multilateral principle of non-discrimination with the imperative of upholding national security.

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Rethinking special and differential treatment in the World Trade Organization

shipping

WORKING PAPER 05
The overarching principle of SDT is encapsulated in paragraph 1 of the preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement (1994), establishing the WTO and specifying its functions. The WTO Secretariat lists 155 SDT provisions in the WTO Agreements. Development issues have been dealt with in the WTO for over sixty-years in subsequent ‘Trade Rounds’ and have concluded with varying degrees of success.

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Special and differential treatment (SDT) in the World Trade Organisation (WTO)

Trade exports

Monday 22 November, 2021. The Institute for International Trade (IIT) presented their findings of a global opinion survey on rethinking Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The webinar was held intention of enhancing understanding of the pertinent issues pertaining to, and different perspectives on, Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) amongst key stakeholders in international trade policy.

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