International Trade

It took nearly eight years, but a dozen countries on both sides of the Pacific Rim, which account for 40% of the world's GDP reached a trade agreement.  Attention will now shift to the ratification process.  It took nearly eight...

Significant legislative and practical challenges in enhancing consumer product safety law remain in many parts of Southeast Asia. But liberalising trade within ASEAN and with its outside trading partners has led to major progress in consumer protection standards. Significant legislative...

The Schengen area has never tested to the same level as it is now. The unprecedented volume of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe has left its leaders struggling to cope. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, issued a sober warning that...

Egypt has opened a second lane to the Suez Canal amid much fanfare. The US$8 billion dollar expansion adds 35km of new channels to the existing canal and another 35km where existing bodies of water were dredged to make way...

Ever since Jagdish Bhagwati coined the phrase ‘spaghetti bowl’ to describe the maze of overlapping preferential trade arrangements (PTAs), trade economists have been split over whether such deals are ‘building blocks’ or ‘stumbling blocks’ for the multilateral trading system. Ever...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Russia, and his visit to Pakistan next year for the SAARC summit, has raised hopes about...

As the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) goes through another round, some details have started trickling out from the secretive negotiations. A concerning detail for Australia is the provision that applies penalties to foreign state-owned enterprises (SOEs) if they receive discounted loans...

Black Forest ham, Asiago, Gorgonzola, Gouda, and many other European geographical indications for foodstuffs are at the centre of a TTIP food fight. They are all protected from imitation by other companies in many countries of the world. Not in...

US exports of goods and services to China have been practically flat since the first quarter of 2014, while Chinese exports to the United States have expanded only modestly. This is not an inspiring record. Meanwhile, two-way stocks of direct...

The international trading system is at a crossroads. While the Doha Round of WTO negotiations remains deadlocked, new trade rules are being called for to adjust for new realities, such as the expansion of global value chains (GVCs). This means...

The White House’s effort to hammer the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in Maui failed. As time is running out for President Obama’s legacy achievement, both Washington and Beijing are reassessing their options. Last week, Pacific Rim officials met on the...

After 10 years of negotiations and the official signing in June 2015, the Australia–China free trade agreement (FTA) still is not a done deal. A coalition of Australian trade unions is seeking to ‘stop the China FTA’ at the final...

The ECB's Economic Bulletin neatly summarizes some interesting trends in Eurozone trade patterns.   There are four main points. First, through the early 2000s, most of the trade was between EMU countries.  Since then, however, trade outside of EMU has increased,...

The largest hurdle for the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement — the US president’s ability to get Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track — is now clear. Many people think that the TPP can wrap up in a few months....

Economic integration has steadily increased in East Asia. But the region still suffers from what South Korean President Park Geun-hye calls ‘Asia’s paradox’, the disconnect between economic interdependence and backward political and security cooperation. Any further economic integration will likely...