News: Opinions

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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Why Abandoning the WTO E Commerce Moratorium is a Terrible Idea

Digital Transformation

Jane Drake-Brockman is Industry Professor, Institute for International Trade, Convenor of the JM Network, Trade & Investment in Services Associates (TIISA), Member of the G20 Trade and Investment Research Network (TIRN) and Founder and Director of the Australian Services Roundtable.
Services stakeholders around the world are banding together as never before in a last-ditch effort in the lead up to the 12th WTO Ministerial Session in Geneva on 30 November. Many issues are at stake, but one stands on a pedestal of its own; the WTO moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions.

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Government subsidies and environmental costs

Wind Farm

Ken Ash is an Independent Consultant, IIT Visiting Fellow, and former OECD Director of Trade and Agriculture.
The
economic and trade distortions caused by ill-conceived government support for sectors ranging from agriculture, fisheries and fossil fuels to aluminium (2019, 2021), steel and semiconductors are enormous. While this is explicitly recognized by G7, G20 and APEC member governments, amongst others, the pace of subsidy reform remains glacial.

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Prospects for future UK-Australia Services Trade

office space

George Riddell Director of Trade Strategy at EY, London. 
On 17 June 2021, Australia and the United Kingdom announced an Agreement in Principle on a new Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Since then, negotiators on both sides have been hammering out the details of the legal text of the agreement. This article assesses the prospects for services trade between the countries. 

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The Landing Zone in Trade Agreements for Cross-Border Data Flows

Digitization world economy

Dr Pascal Kerneis, expert in the European services industry in international trade and investment negotiations.
The digitalisation of the world economy is continuing at a fast pace. Its successful progress is dependent on the ability to move data as freely as possible across international borders. Digital trade chapters are therefore becoming a critical part of bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral trade agreements.

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Services are essential too! Identifying the missing link in trade policy proposals during the pandemic

DHL Air Bus

Dr Sherry Stephenson, Convenor, Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) Services Network.
Considerable discussion has been carried out over the past 18 months on how to most effectively address the COVID-19 health pandemic in an international context, particularly the critical role of trade in providing the necessary channels for moving essential medical equipment, vaccines and therapeutics, across borders

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The Topology of E-commerce Governance

Trade in Services

Nicholas Frank, Associate Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University.
Global e-commerce is governed by a dense web of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). While the literature on e-commerce governance is growing, our knowledge of the landscape of the e-commerce governance system remains limited.

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China: the Elephant in the Room at Australia’s Africa Week

China

Dr Lauren A. Johnston is Visiting Senior Lecturer, Adelaide University Institute of International Trade and Founding Director, New South Economics
This week the capital of Australia’s Indian Ocean-facing state Western Australia, Perth, hosts Africa Week. Africa Week is an annual event drawing together policy makers, business communities, academics and the citizenry on all things Africa-Australia related.

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India’s reform momentum will define its economic future

India

Natasha Jha Bhaskar is General Manager of Newland Global Group
Thirty years after India’s 1991 economic reforms which ushered a new era of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, the road ahead for a New India will be determined by reforms that deliver equitable growth, meets the aspirations of a young population, and strengthen global economic integration.

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Loss of LDC-Specific S&D Treatment: How Concerned Should Graduating LDCs Be?

International Negotiations

Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka, Bangladesh
Before the COVID-19 pandemic had struck in 2020, 12 LDCs had become eligible for graduation by either meeting at least two of the three graduation criteria, or thanks to having crossed the threshold of double the per capita GNI. Graduation during a pandemic raises significant risks in and of itself, but there are other issues too, including that graduation criteria fail to capture many of the underlying causes of vulnerability and institutional weaknesses that persist in the LDCs. Consequently, eligibility of a large number of LDCs for graduation has raised an important development debate as outlined in this article.

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The views expressed here are the author’s, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute for International Trade.

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