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 …
WITH THE passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the US House of Representatives and Senate, US President Bill Clinton has scored a major victory. However, to ensure approval of the agreement, which will gradually eliminate almost all trade and investment restrictions between the US, Canada and …
INDONESIA will start putting ecolabels on tropical timber from sustainable sources from 1995, in order to comply with the International Timber Trade Organisation's (ITTO) policy on ecolabelling. However, the decision has spawned doubts about enforcement and fears of a negative impact on the country's timber industry. The ITTO policy maintains …
THERE'S an unanticipated hurdle to the Indian government's Transplantation of Human Organs Bill (THOB), 1992, which allows collection of organs for transplant from bodies of accident victims and "brain-dead" individuals with the permission of their next-of-kin. The government seems not to have realised that, in a backward country like India, …
THE US has let Norway off the hook. US President Bill Clinton informed Congress, in the first week of October, that he does not intend to impose trade sanctions against Norway for violating an international ban on commercial whaling, but would instead persuade it to halt killing of minke whales. …
THE WITHDRAWAL of USA -- the largest consumer of coffee -- is unlikely to invalidate the International Coffee Agreement, which aims at stabilising coffee prices for the benefit of both consumers and producers. Sufficient importing members have already agreed to the pact. Though the loss has been acknowledged to be …
A US APPEALS court has ruled that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) can be forwarded to Congress without an environmental impact statement, even as a power plant near the border fuelled a row about environmental damage. The US court agreed with the Clinton administration that private groups could …
THE GROWING fear of losing jobs has fuelled the debate on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Among the major opponents to the pact between the US, Canada and Mexico, are Ross Perot, a contender for the US President's post in 1992, the American Federation of Labour-Confederation of Industrial …
ALLEGATIONS of illegal practices in the prawn trade in Chilika -- Asia's largest brackish water lake -- have been confirmed by a five-member 'fact-finding' committee set up by the Bhubaneswar High Court. The committee was set up in response to writ petitions filed by three primary fisherfolk cooperative societies challenging …
How do you see globalisation as a phenomenon, particularly where globalisation will mean only economic integration, and not a political one? Globalisation has a number of dimensions, which are now more or less integrated. Personally, I don't think globalisation has brought about only economic integration. Political integration has also taken …
THE PROPOSED North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico was dealt a stiff blow by a court judgement requiring the US government to file an environmental impact statement on the effects of the accord, before it comes into force on January 1, 1994. The suit …
CARIBBEAN banana producers have challenged the review to be undertaken by a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) panel to examine European Community restrictions imposed on the fruit's import from Latin America. The review was proposed by Latin American countries, whose bananas are cheaper, and seeks to do away …
THE RADICAL Khmer Rouge has won enough seats in the May 1993 Cambodian elections to pose a definite threat to the newly elected Norodom Sihanouk government. But to sustain its success, the Khmer Rouge has ensure its teak trade with Thailand - a major source of its income - gets …
Even as Union finance minister Manmohan Singh proclaimed the success of liberalisation and globalisation of the country's economy before World Bank officials in April this year, the Clinton administration targeted India for discriminatory sanctions under the Special 301 provisions of the US Trade Act. This is the third time since …
THE RATE of work-related accidents in India is nearly eight times that of Western nations and has risen by 20 per cent in the last decade. The 13th World Congress on Occupational Safety and Health, held in Delhi recently, thus rightly focussed on working conditions in the country. Factory owners, …
BEIJING is making an all-out effort to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by the end of this year, despite indications from US trade representatives that it may take longer. The Chinese have been wooing foreign investors by telling them that their entry to GATT is imminent, …
US SOURCES contend Japan is violating a 1991 agreement, which requires the Japanese to buy 20 per cent of its computer chip needs from USA. A third-quarter assessment in 1992 shows the US share of the Japanese chip market is still only 15.9 per cent. Responding to US commerce secretary …
RUSSIA has offered to trade its cut-price satellite launch potential for a guaranteed number of launches at international prices. Space agency chief Yuri Koptiev said he would accept a quota of three launches a year, one-fifth of the total world market. This would generate US $200 million for the Russians, …
PRESSING need for foreign exchange is pushing the country on to the international timber trail. Though the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) chooses to be tight-lipped, official sources admit timber exports have been given a green signal. To begin with, timber traders will be allowed to re-export teak wood …
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton wants American research to adopt the Japanese stress on industrial applications. But his call may have come too late as Japanese scientists are switching their thrust to basic research, in which the Americans have hitherto been pre-eminent. Clinton plans to add at least $7 billion to the …
HARMONISING the management of environmental and trade interests is like blending east and west -- the twain shall never meet. Not, at least, in the foreseeable future. Yet, this is the central pursuit of the authors of this elegant publication, a compendium of papers read at an international symposium. Each …
