Trade

Trade and development report update: April 2024

The report forecasts global economic growth to 2.6% in 2024, barely above the 2.5% threshold commonly associated with a recessionary phase. The report says the prevailing focus on inflation overshadows urgent issues like trade disruptions, climate change and rising inequalities. It advocates for structural reforms and coordinated global efforts, proposing …

Dangerous liasion

Poaching of endangered animals has a lot in common with drug trafficking. It has added fillip to the international medicine trade based on animal parts -an organised crime stretching from North America to Asia. Policing the activity is difficult, although there have been seizures by IUCN/WWF supported TRAFFIC-international, and India's …

TRADE RULES

South Asian nations - Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives - will now be bound by the South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) which is to come into force from December 7. The agreement will allow concessional trade among the seven members. "Arrangements like SAPTA are crucial for the …

PIPPHILINES

Calauit island, the island reserve legacy of Ferdinand Marcos, the former president of Philippines, has become a killing field for African wildlife. Animal species including eight species imported from Kenya such as giraffes, zebras, impaias and gazelles, have struggled to survive on a shoestring budget from the Department of Natural …

Green diktats

THE international market for agricultural products has been severely constrained so far by the high tariff walls set up by the major developed markets. The problem has been further com- pounded by massive export subsidies granted to farm production and farm products export, particularly by the United States and the …

Market rights

The 20 papers included in this book examine 3 issues -- market access commitments, plant breeders' rights and reduction of export subsidies on agro-exports. It has been argued that the existing subsidies for the farm sector should continue to encourage this sector. Further, the reduction in farm subsidies by the …

Neighbourhood on sale

IF You want to sell off your car, how about advertising on television? If you are thinking about the expenses, don't worry - it will be cheap enough, thanks to the efforts of researchers from Viewcall, a company set to storm Britain's information superhighway. The firm has developed a new …

UNITED NATIONS

The future of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) seems endangered as calls to reform the UN attain stridency. Created in 1964 for providing development ideas, the UNCTAD has emerged high on the hit list, since the creation of the World Trade Organization has rendered it superfluous. Industrialised …

Recycling colonialism

MANY industrialized countries regard their developing counterparts as dumpyards - destined receivers of hazardous by products and waste generated by their hi-tech lifestyle and consumerism. This technically simple-minded and morally irresponsible point of view has led them to resist any attempt to strengthen the Basel Convention, which provides for a …

Patchwork economics

LEADERS of 34 countries attending the Summit of the Americas left Miami after the 3 day-long meeting, which concluded on December 12, 1994, seemingly in an upbeat mood. Host us President Bill Clinton said that the meeting would create a free trade area stretching from "Alaska to Argentina". Heads of …

Trade union

The European Court of Justice has finally given its verdict on the prickly question of European trade policy: the European Commission, the European Community's (ec) executive body, must share authority over trade in services and intellectual property with other ec members. The ruling in mid-November was a blow to the …

More blah

Long range vision marked the mid-November summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Jakarta, Indonesia. apec called upon its industrialised members and other developing members to remove trade and investment barriers by ad 2010 and 2020 respectively. However, observers say that more significant was the commitment of 18 nations …

... the key to prosperity

it is generally presumed that countries that lead in technological innovations will also reap the economic benefits arising from them. But history reveals that rarely have the innovators of technology done well economically. Interestingly, it also reveals that India has excelled in putting technology developed by others to her own …

Smokescreen

Round 1in the current wrestle between the hulking cigarette industry and the government goes to the US administration. Just when the tobacco lobby had heaved a collective sigh of relief at having squeeze in its favour a relatively mild tax of 69 cents per cigarette pack, when the government backhanded …

The return of leather weather

AMONG the many perishable theories that poured out of the minds of management gurus was the notion of sunrise and sunset industries. Beyond the phase of maturity, the prophets laid down, industries would gradually perish. The lifecyle of industries and human beings, it was suggested, is so similar; and it …

Bribery in high places

DOING business with Britain is not Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad's cup of tea any longer. Following allegations in the British press that Mohamad had accepted a bribe from a British contractor, the prime minister has imposed tough trade sanctions against that country. In a move geared to send Britain's …

Voices against protectionism

ATTENTION was riveted to the proposed new world trade order at the recently concluded 9-day conference of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in New Delhi. In an unusual display of solidarity, several Third World countries spoke out loud and clear on issues that the …

Trade off human rights and the market

GREEN barriers loom menacingly large on the horizon. On March 28, while addressing the leaders of the G-15 nations, Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao expressed his apprehensions over the introduction of fresh trade barriers in the garb of non-economic concerns. Then, speaking at the business forum of the G-15 …

Imminent deluge

IN A sharp policy departure from the norm, the Clinton administration has proposed banning exports of all hazardous wastes outside North America. If the US Congress approves, it will overturn a tradition of steadfastly parrying moves to curb waste dumping on developing countries. However, there is a catch. As Carol …

Ban on bones

IN A victory for conservationists, South Korea has decided to ban domestic trade in tiger bones and rhino horns from 1995. Although a ban on their imports have been in force -- Siberian tiger bones since 1993 and rhino horns since 1984 -- the goods continue to be smuggled in. …

Conserve and sell

Environmentalists in favour of sustainable utilisation of wildlife have once more stepped up their campaign. In a letter to the Union environment ministry, herpetologist Romulus Whitaker reiterated his demand for the commercial exploitation of crocodiles, which are overcrowding his crocodile bank near Madras. Pointing out that crocodiles are no longer …

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