Events
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ECIPE Afternoon Seminar: The Internationalisation of the Renminbi – Will It Become a Major Reserve Currency?
The rise of the Renminbi (RMB) as a key currency in international financial markets has been fast. It reflects China’s general expansion in the ‘real’ world economy, and its accumulation of official foreign exchange reserves. There is no doubt that the role of the RMB for the global economy will increase. Just three decades ago, that seemed like a very remote notion. The question now is if the RMB will assume a pivotal role as an instrument for transactions in international trade and investment as well as, ultimately, as a reserve currency.
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ECIPE-ESF Afternoon Seminar – Leading with Services: Trade and Investment Integration between Europe and Taiwan
Greater openness to trade and investment with Asian growth economies would help to boost Europe’s services sector. A particularly interesting market for European firms is Taiwan. Its services market has grown fast in the past decades, and today Taiwan is increasingly becoming a hub for services firms trading with other countries in the region. This is particularly true for trade with China as the cross-Strait rapprochement has opened up for new opportunities of regional services integration in East Asia. Many other countries are now moving to be part of this integration. What should be Europe’s response?
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ECIPE Lunch Seminar: The EU & the Asia-Pacific region: Ambassadors of Australia, Indonesia and Japan
It is said that we live in the Age of Asia – the global economy is increasingly dependent on Asian markets and political attention is swinging to the Asian-Pacific region. The latter is especially true with respects to business and trade. With the potential for a TPP or RCEP (regional agreement centred around ASEAN), a new regional architecture is emerging
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ECIPE Lunch Seminar: The Future of the World Trade Organization
These are dangerous times for the multilateral trading system. Never since its establishment in 1995 has the World Trade Organization been in such a perilous state. The shambolic 1999 Seattle Ministerial Conference previously represented the nadir in the fortunes of the organization but it rallied quickly afterwards and launched the Doha Round just two years later. Now no such recovery is in prospect. Dispute settlement apart, the WTO scene is characterised largely by drift and neglect, with no apparent light at the end of the tunnel. How did this state of affairs come about, and what are the potential consequences for the global trading system?
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ECIPE Afternoon Seimar: Why did ACTA fail?
ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) was meant to enforce and harmonise IPR provisions in existing trade agreements within a wider group of countries, yet its implementation failed in Europe when European Parliament rejected this trade agreement earlier in July.
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ECIPE Roundtable: Can Trade Agreements Reform Societies? with Dr. Taeho Bark, Minister for Trade, Korea
While trade agreements are motivated by better access to export markets, they are also catalysts for necessary domestic reforms to improve competitiveness. However, there is no shortage of critics who object to reforms or increased foreign imports and workers at home, especially in a time of crisis.
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ECIPE Briefing Seminar: Subsidies, Trade Wars, and Megaphone Diplomacy
This summer saw a meltdown of the trade diplomacy between the EU, China and the US over trade defence. One particular contagious topic was state subsidies - and the use of countervailing duties against them. The debate led to a very public display of discord amongst the EU leadership, while the never-ending spat over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing turned into a transatlantic soap opera.
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ECIPE Conference: The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Quest for a 21st Century Trade Agreement
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, now being negotiated between 11 states including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam, is supposed to solve many of the problems that have come from overlapping trade deals in the past decade. It is also supposed to be different—“a high quality, 21st century” agreement that will set standards for future trade agreements.
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ECIPE Afternoon Seminar: Russia in the World Trade Organisation
Russia recently joined the World Trade Organisation. The accession negotiations have been long and controversial, and there have been doubts in Russia as well as in other countries about the merits of having Russia inside the WTO. But now that the accession has concluded successfully, it is time to look at how to make the best of Russia’s entry. Is this an opportunity for larger reforms in Russia’s economic and commercial policy? Will it deliver on its promises to liberalise its economy? Should Europe fear that Russia will be a disobedient member of the WTO club? And what should be EU’s strategy for Russia’s membership in the WTO – and, beyond, bilateral relations to deepen economic integration?
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ECIPE Conference: Whither Europe-Asia Trade and Economic Relations?
It is said that we live in the Age of Asia. And it is in many ways true. With weak growth in Europe and the U.S., the world economy is increasingly relying on the continental economic awakening in Asia to continue. Yet rapid changes in the world economy, and the structure of world economic power, seldom take place without political friction. Managing a country’s relative economic incline can be as difficult as managing an economy’s relative decline.