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 …
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 …
The 1993-94 Annual Review and Assessment of the World Tropical Timber Situation reports that declining global production and imports have increased the chasm between exports and imports to over 5.8 million metres cube. Resource scarce, tropical timber exporting countries like India and Thailand have now become net importers. With Asian …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
