Events

With African leaders now calling for a continental free trade area by 2017, to boost trade within the continent, a new World Bank report shows how African countries are losing out on billions of dollars in potential trade earnings every year because of high trade barriers with neighboring countries, and that it is easier for Africa to trade with the rest of the world than with itself.

The cornerstone of EU trade policy towards developing countries is the system of tariff preferences. Now that system is under reform, and the European Parliament’s Trade Committee recently affirmed, with some notable revisions, the Commission’s original idea to cut back on the number of countries that are granted preferential access to the EU market. Countries such as Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia will be excluded as the number of beneficiaries is slimmed down. It will also shrink the import that now enters the EU at preferential tariff rates, which has prompted critical comments from development agencies.

The expansion of global value chains has a major impact on international trade. New trade patterns are not so much about trade in goods as trade in tasks. Trade in intermediate inputs accounts for a considerable part of total trade, and that share has been growing at a remarkable speed in the past decade. What are the sources of this increase – and to what extent are new global value chains global or regional in nature? And what does the rise of global value chains means for competition?

Mutual recognition and harmonisation have been instrumental for regional market integration, including the Single Market. As common regulations in different economic areas deepen and become increasingly more complex, regulatory divergences between the East and West also create barriers to trade. Standards and requirements can also used as a tool for industrial policy and protectionism.

The exceptional development of internet in recent years has brought many benefits and new opportunities for an increasing number of people. Yet, it has also raised unprecedented moral and legal questions for both users and web sites – and the internet service providers (ISP) that connects them. Meanwhile, new threats from cyber crime have put the questions around privacy, security and monitoring at the centre stage of a lively debate.

In a new report, the Transatlantic Task Force on Trade and Investment presents new and ambitious initiatives for transatlantic leadership in global economic and trade policy.

The perception on China has changed among European countries. In the event of aglobal economic crisis, the country would be seen more as a potential financial paymaster rather than disruptive pupil. Yet, there are many challenges ahead for China. Economic pressures are building up, especially in the construction and real estate sectors. Growth is certainly moderating, and some observerswarn of a hard landing for China in the next few years. China’s traditional model for growth is certainly becoming exhausted. And to these economic challenges should also be added political ones. There are increasing pressures on permitting a more open public debate. China’s role in global and regional security policy has been growing rapidly, but it is still not clear exactly what China wants to use its power for, other than securing access to raw materials. A change of such policies may not be possible without challenging the sacred principals for China’s ruling party.

Is Europe again flirting with an activist industrial policy as model for increased competitiveness? Events in the last few years suggest that the trend towards a non-interventionist industrial policy may have come to a halt. The financial crisis of 2008-09 and the severe recession that followed prompted governments to give financial support to industries, which had been hard hit by falling demand. These interventions were in response to exceptional events, but seemed to indicate a greater willingness on the part of governments to support industries or companies that were deemed to be too important to fail. Will this trend continue – and what can new efforts to design industrial policies learn from Europe’s past experience in that field?

The number of bilateral free trade agreements involving economies in East Asia has surged. Yet their utilisation remains relatively low. In the context of the so-called ‘noodle bowl’ of agreements and its effects on business costs, of slow progress in the WTO, and of the greater focus on barriers to international business which operate ‘behind the border’, economies in the region are now looking for new paths to integration. These include the Trans-PacificPartnership (TPP) and also arrangements with ASEAN at their centre. What are the prospects of these different paths, how do they sit alongside existing regional institutions like APEC and also the WTO process, and what are the implications for trade and investment? These questions are discussed in this talk. Some implications for and opportunities for cooperation with the EU will also be noted.

In our series of seminars ahead of the WTO Ministerial Conference in December, we look at the WTO IT Agreement, a sector agreement that many consider as the template for future work in the WTO.