I am happy to share the link to my blog “FEW THOUGHTS ON RESHORING, NEARSHORING AND PROSPECTS FOR CROATIA’S PARTICIPATION IN VALUE CHAINS” published recently at the Institute for Euro-Asian Studies at the Faculty of Business and Economics, Zagreb (my alma mater). I welcome your comments!
It was a pleasure to host Professor Simon Evenett and Professor Ian Coxhead for the ARTNeT webinar on Must do Better: Trade & Industrial Policy and the SDGs. This session presented the 30th Global Trade Alert Report under the same title authored by Simon J. Evenett and Johannes Fritz.
Many governments reckon their trade policies promote environmental improvements, the clean energy transition, improved conditions for workers, and other aspects of sustainable development. Yet many critics and promoters of trade reform pour cold water on the notion that commercial policy should target Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs).
To take this discussion forward, this Global Trade Alert Report offers a factual assessment of what commercial policy has contributed to the SDGs since the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development came into effect in 2016 and how much more it could contribute from here on. Also, the Report tackles head-on the apparent tension between openness and advancing SDGs and puts forward suggestions to resolve it. Professor Evenett’s presentation. Professor Coxhead's presentation. Video recording of the session.
It was a great experience to participate in the Group on Services events at the Senior Officials Meetings of APEC in Palm Springs, USA in February 2003. I contributed to the discussions on Trade in services and women which was very rewarding and aligned with my order work (see other entries on this page). The Private Public Dialogue organized by Sherry Stephenson and me on Essential Service: Achieving Better Policies toward Logistics-related Services was well attended and harvested useful recommendations to move our project even closer to a successful finish later this year.
Recording of this session is available here.
I am looking forward to moderating the upcoming ARTNeT webinar on TRADE WINS AND MISSES OF 2022 AND THE LOOK AHEAD. 2022 has been the third year with the pandemic still very much present in many countries, but also the year of return of inflation, rising poverty, wars and a continued worsening of climate change impacts.
But what about international trade? On the positive side of the ledger, the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference finally took place last June and ended successfully with a Geneva Package of important results, including the multilateral agreement on fisheries subsidies after 2 decades of negotiations. Several regional trade agreements were signed or put in force. On the negative side of the ledger, several countries continued to engage in trade conflicts, and even more resorted to use of restrictive export and other trade measures. The use of trade policy for broad and non-trade objectives has started to become the new normal.
This session invites 3 speakers to provide their personal views on trade wins and misses in 2022 from the perspective of the EU, APEC and developing economies. They are also asked to look ahead into the 2023 and tell us what they wish for trade next year.
Please first register to get the zoom link- http://bit.ly/3gnXip8
