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Standing up to Chinese economic coercion: Is Australia a model of economic resilience?

China

WORKING PAPER 13
Contrary to some prior research findings, the economic costs to Australia of China’s economic coercion are high. Unfortunately, while the bilateral mood music is improving resetting relations may not be possible, nor likely, as both countries pursue economic diversification from the other. Yet there is much to be gained from a calibrated shift in trade and investment relations, notwithstanding the hostile geopolitical environment. Australia needs to establish a 10-15 years strategy for where it wants the relationship to be, and like every other country in the region, negotiate its differences with China.

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Markets are moral by default – what about governments?

Scales

Andreas Freytag, Professor and Chair of Economic Policy, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, and Visiting Professor with IIT
The German law on corporate due diligence in supply chains, also known as the Sustainable Supply Chain Law, has now been in force for four months. Similar laws in other countries have a longer history. Overall, efforts by Western lawmakers to regulate domestic companies and encourage, if not require, compliance with human rights, labour, and environmental standards along their entire value chain are picking up steam. 

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Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Trade & Environment

No Planet B

The University of Adelaide, through its Institute for International Trade, has established the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Trade and Environment. Funded by the EU’s Erasmus Plus programme, the COE will work across the University, including its Environment Institute and Institute for Sustainability and Resources, to catalyse research into linkages between international trade and the environment. The COE will also emphasise stakeholder and community engagement to raise awareness of these linkages.

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What to expect from June’s China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition

Photo Credit: patrice6000

Dr. Lauren Johnston is a Visiting Senior Lecturer, Institute for International Trade, Adelaide University and Associate Professor, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney. As Australia’s trade relations with China are being reset, both countries are simultaneously pursuing diversification opportunities. For China, Africa is an important source of minerals and agricultural commodities that could rival Australia. In this article Lauren Johnson reports on an important forthcoming event that aims to take China-Africa trade relations to the next level.

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The Political Economy of Due Diligence Legislation

Field

POLICY BRIEF 21: Prof Peter Draper The Institute for International Trade, The University  of Adelaide. Prof Andreas Freytag, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena. Naoise McDonagh, Edith Cowan University. Prof Matthias Menter, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena. Western democracy increasingly values human and social rights, civil liberties, and sustainability issues. This is materialising into legalisation, obliging domestic businesses to both comply and enforce these values along supply chains. However, this legalisation has its controversies regarding compliance costs, impacts on foreign relationships, and effectiveness, inter alia. Due diligence legislation is inherently complex. This policy brief develops a conceptual overview of the political economy challenges when designing these laws and evaluates how Western countries could enforce values-based trade along international supply chains.

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Geopolitical tensions and economic fragmentation: a trade policy response

A stylized image of dried and cracked soil representing fragmentation

POLICY BRIEF 20: Carlos A. Primo Braga is an Adjunct Professor, Fundação Dom Cabral, Brazil; Visiting Professor at IMD, Switzerland and at El Colegio de México. 
Douglas Lippoldt is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI, Canada). At a time when effective global co-ordination and action are desperately required, developments on the ground present several challenges. The shock from the COVID-19 pandemic elicited protectionist sentiment in some areas and continues to weigh on the global economy, despite the heroic response by the medical community. The war in Ukraine is tremendously costly to the adversaries. It has also proven very costly to third parties, especially those dependent on food and energy supply from the region.

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Monitoring the impact of the EU’s new foreign investment screening mechanism

EU

Jens Hillebrand Pohl is a Research Scientist in the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University, Finland.
Amidst the rise of increased geoeconomic competition, the European Union introduced a foreign direct investment screening framework for member states. The framework coordinates member-state national screening mechanisms, rather than an EU-level screening authority, reflecting the compromise reached between the EU commissions favour of a  cautionary approach and the member states pushing for EU regulation. This policy brief outlines the Commission’s monitoring mandate over investment screening activity, proposing a set of parameters for measuring the impact of screening on investment.

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Reforming EU Rules of Origin Applied to Trade Agreements with Africa - Webinar (Copy)

Male - Factory worker

Thursday, 10 November 2022 The Institute for International Trade (IIT), through its Centre of Excellence in International Trade & Global Affairs, held a webinar and  presentation on the case for Reforming EU Rules of Origin Applied to Trade Agreements with Africa.

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Open strategic autonomy and the new geoeconomics: consequences for EU trade policy

eu flags

Jens Hillebrand Pohl is a Research Scientist in the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University, Finland.
The geoeconomic paradigm shift has led the European Union in pursuit of open strategic autonomy, in response to the need for dynamic strategy to manage economic interdependence. Europe is adapting to global power competition through a range of policy areas increasing their geoeconomic competitiveness, including updating their geoeconomic defences through policy and strengthening their diminishing geoeconomic power through international cooperation.
  However, this does not simply result in effects to external relationships, but has exposed divisions amongst member states in how to manage Europe’s economic interdependence. 

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Measuring diversification in Australian Goods Exports, 2001-2021: Policy and Technical Considerations

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China’s blocking of sales of Australian commodities has led to increased interest in diversification of Australia’s exports, to lessen dependence on the Chinese market. Australia’s export diversifications was increasing in the second half of the 21st century, with the Australian government seeking new markets in the emerging economies. However, export concentration, both geographically and in products and commodities, has increased since the start of this century. This paper measures the geographical export concentration and the product concentration of Australian exports to China and the World over the previous 20 years, and the policy implications.  

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