Trade and Sustainable Development Symposium

Recent years have witnessed China’s growing engagement with Global Economic Governance. This session will focus on China’s new policies and future action on Global Economic Governance. Topics are as followed:
1. China and G20, and the development on multilateral investment agreements (Axel Berger)
2. China and Investment Policy
 (Cristian Rodriguez Chifelle)
3. China and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Trade, Poverty Eradication and Inclusive Growth (Anabel Gonzalez)
4. China and WTO multilateral trading system
(Bernard Hoekman)
5. China’s growing engagement with Global Economic Governance
(Longyue Zhao)

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The UK’s decision to exit the European Union (EU) has significant implications for Britain’s trade policy relationship with Africa. While Africa may not be a top priority for the UK trade policy post-Brexit, the strong historical links and today’s meaningful trade relationship between many African nations and the UK suggest that Africa should not be overlooked by the British government. In addition, now is the moment to establish the foundations of a strong and mutually beneficial long-term relationship.

Urgent action is required to provide continuity in the trade relationship between Africa and the UK. An immediate priority is to ensure at a minimum that existing market access is retained for all African countries following Brexit. While maintaining continuity and avoiding uncertainty is crucial, there should be an attempt to replace existing EU Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with an improved framework that addresses the divisions created by the EPA process and its various limitations. The UK’s new trade policy offers an unprecedented opportunity to introduce a more comprehensive partnership framework that is more effective in supporting Africa’s integration, industrialization and development agendas. There is a real risk of missing this opportunity if urgent action is not taken.

So what type of form would a more comprehensive and progressive Africa-UK partnership agreement take? The objective of this session is to advance understanding of the opportunities and challenges Brexit presents for African countries. In doing so policy options for effectively leveraging Brexit to support the achievement of Africa’s development and trade objectives, at the same time as delivering win-win solutions that can also facilitate the interests of the UK, will be highlighted. The session will consider issues beyond UK market access including reciprocity, rules of origin, standards, and complementary targeted capacity building.

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Trade policy has emerged as one of the most contested policy fields during Germany’s G20 presidency. Given the recent spat on trade between the US and a number of G20 countries including the German chair the respective section in the communiqué of the Hamburg Summit is surprisingly strong emphasising the importance of a rules-based international trading system including effective rules’ enforcement within the World Trade Organization. The G20, furthermore, commits to promote social and environmental standards and human rights in global value chains. Reading between the lines, though, some differences are still visible. For example, the G20 in Hamburg commits to “fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices” while recognising “legitimate trade defence instruments”. Against this background, this panel discussion reflects on the outcomes of the Hamburg Summit, its implications for the MC11 in Buenos Aires and Argentina’s G20 presidency.

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The impetus of multilateral trading system was formed to overcome the outbreak of protectionism in the 1930s and its severe scarring effects. With the expansion of membership over last six decades, it has transformed into the current system, represented by the World Trade Organization. The positive contribution of the WTO in trade liberalization has been well-acknowledged, especially in terms of setting out rule-based global trading system and leading the participation of heterogeneous economies at various development levels in it. According to the WTO, the volume of trade has increased two-and-a-half times since the launch of the WTO. Such explosive increase of global trade is believed to have created better opportunities for faster ecnomic growth, higher levels of job creation, and poverty reduction across countries.

Despite the success and achievements realized so far, the current multilateral trading system has confronted significant challenges. Sluggish progress and repeated delays of the Doha Round negotiations in consequence have failed to provide proper venues to explore new trading rules in a fast-evolving global economic environment. At the same time, the rise of protectionist sentiment and corresponding trade-restrictive actions across countries since the global financial crisis pose another challenge along with slow eeconomic recovery, stagnated trade growth and widening income inequality. In spite of numerous evidence of positive benefits from trade, escalating dissatisfaction towards trade liberalization puts the pursuit of trade liberalization and economic integration on the defensive as populist backlash against trade prevails even among the world’s leading economies.

Notwithstanding such widely-accepted consensus that we need to break the current political stalemate and move forward in pursuit of trade liberalization, the answer to how to elicit international cooperation for it under the current multilateral trading system does not seem so clear.

In this session, we first would like to assess the achievements and the challenges of the multilateral trading system, especially in the context of current economic environment. Then we will explore all the possible options for the changes of the current multilateral trading system and ways to enhance the international cooperation in trade liberalization.

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The current complex system of regulatory frameworks governing global trade and investment, largely based on principles, norms and agreements negotiated in the context of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO, is characterised by tensions. In addition to electoral politics and public reactions to advancing global integration efforts, there are fundamental shifts in business models and rapidly evolving and disruptive technologies creating unprecedented opportunities for wealth, wellbeing and development, but also fueling anxiety. This uncertainty is further exacerbated by the twin global public policy challenges posed by climate change and the unsustainable use of natural resources.
This high-level plenary seeks to determine if the WTO and its Members are prepared for these profound changes, and allows top policymakers, intergovernmental organisations and business to share their views on possible ways to harness the WTO and the rest of the global trade system to support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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This session will present a new book edited by Carlos Primo Braga and Bernard Hoekman. The volume brings together essays on key challenges confronting the global trading system, taking a business perspective.

Other authors present during se session are:
Giorgio Sacerdoti, Professor, Bocconi University
Simon J. Evenett, Professor, University of St. Gallen
Clemens Boonekamp, Associate Partner, IDEAS Centre
Nick Ashton-Hart, Associate Fellow, Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Eduardo Pérez Motta, Partner, Agon Economía, Derecho y Estrategia

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This session will present a new book edited by Carlos Primo Braga and Bernard Hoekman. The volume brings together essays on key challenges confronting the global trading system, taking a business perspective.

ITTI is designed to examine how cutting-edge technologies –such as blockchain and augmented intelligence– will allow international trade policies, transactions and negotiations to advance, amid countering deglobalization forces.

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With the entry into force of the WTO’s landmark Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), governments are set to accomplish the vital task of transforming the TFA provisions into concrete reforms to be implemented nationally.

Effective engagement and contribution of the private sector is crucial to ensuring the success of trade facilitation and maximizing its impact on economic development and poverty reduction. The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation is at the centre of such efforts.

What lessons can we learn from practical experiences of public-private collaboration around trade facilitation? What are the ways forward?

Two years on from the Alliance’s launch at MC10 in Nairobi, please join us for a discussion on lessons learned from its initial portfolio of projects in countries including Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, Ghana and Sri Lanka. Practical experiences will be also shared from other participants and ways forward for further leveraging the private sector will be discussed.

Note: This session will be in the form of an interactive workshop with breakout table discussions without interpretation. 

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Economic transformation is crucial for the type of growth that reduces poverty, create jobs and is resilient to shocks. But many low-income countries have failed to transform successfully. Trade has nearly always been a key component in those countries that have transformed successfully. This event will unpack the role that trade has played in the process of transformation in a number of countries and regions and discuss how trade policy provisions such as those currently under discussion at the WTO can further contribute.
The Supporting Economic Transformation (SET) at ODI defines economic transformation as the process of moving from low productivity to high productivity activities, either between or within sectors. Trade, or exposure to trade, can increase productivity in existing sectors or firms as well as move resources from inefficient into efficient firms and sectors.
Multilateral trade provisions can help set the right incentives to invest, innovate, produce and trade in sectors with comparative advantage. They can also generate maintain opportunities in new sectors currently affected by global protectionism and other trade distortions. Current discussions at the WTO that might affect ET includes the elimination of subsidies in fishing, tightening disciplines on domestic support of agriculture and further provisions on digital trade and e-commerce.


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This panel will reflect on an ongoing project that brings together a group of experienced trade policy practitioners to reflect on the implications for the trading system of recent trade and trade policy developments. These include the "globalisation backlash," rising pressures for protectionism in a number of countries and discontent with trade agreements, and the difficulties encountered in recent multilateral, "mega-regional" and plurilateral trade negotiations. The panel specifically will focus on issues regarding whether the WTO's modus operandi is fit for purpose for key stakeholders (emerging economies, businesses, voters) and how reform could strengthen this. It will therefore cover the ability of the trading system to respond to the present pressures and already existing practices within the framework that might point to a path forward. The session will draww on recent and ongoing work that is being undertaken by several of the panellists. The aim is to identify options for WTO members to leverage existing institutional mechanisms.

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Services and service providers in the least-developed countries (LDC) face barriers in accessing developing and developed countries’ markets. These restrictions—mostly related to commercial presence and the movement of natural persons to provide services—notably come in the form of visa policies and non-recognition of qualifications. Movement of a person from an LDC to developed countries, which is one of the modes of services trade under the World Trade Organization (WTO), is the most restricted of all. To develop LDCs’ services sector, the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference granted a Services Waiver. In response to the collective waiver request submitted by the LDC Group on 21 July 2014, so far 23 developing and developed country members have offered concessions and preferences to the LDC members. The Waiver brings in challenges along with opportunities to the LDCs. There are ambiguities in the modality of implementation of the Waiver itself, and developed countries have not responded well to the LDC request. 

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The trade landscape continues to transform and many companies are exploring how to remain profitable and operate in this changing scenario. One response has been to strengthen operations where the policy environment is most stable and where trade costs are lowest. For many companies, ‘their region’ represents such a place.For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) regional trade has always been the most common form of internationalization. This is particularly important in the context of value chains, which are often more regional than global in reach.This session will explore how SMEs can benefit from participating in value chains – both international and regional – and how regional trade agreements (RTAs) may create and support greater value chain operations and ensure that SMEs can enter them, operate successfully and upgrade.Regional and multiregional value chains, including South-South, offer SMEs lower entry barriers than international value chains. However, the extent to which SMEs benefit depends on their position within the value chain, which is in turn determined by their bargaining power and competitiveness.Both the behavior of companies – lead firms and suppliers – and the shape of international value chains are intertwined with regional trade agreements. Indeed, regional trade agreements increase value chain driven trade, while value chains shape the design of trade agreements. Evidence suggests that it may be useful to look at value chains operations, the distribution of trade benefits and the design of RTAs in a holistic manner.The 2017 edition of the SME Competitiveness Outlook “The region: A door to global trade” will have its Latin America launch at this session.

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