Centre for WTO studies in association with UN ESCAP & ARTNeT presented the major findings of APTIR and launched a book on the Role of RTAs in IPNs in Asia
New Delhi, 11th August, 2011: Centre for WTO Studies, IIFT in association with UN-ESCAP and ARTNet, has presented the major findings of the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis Trade and Investment Opportunities. The report focuses on policy response at the national and regional levels for improving the governance of trade agreements and the Challenges & Areas of opportunity in trade and investment for regional economies.
On the occasion Prof. Abhijit Das, Head Centre for WTO Studies, IIFT said, “The trade rules particularly in the area of anti-dumping & rules of origin need to keep pace with the developments in international trade which are challenging the basic assumptions behind the trade agreements.”
Dr. Ravi Ratnayake, Director for Trade and Investment Division of the United Nations ESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand presented the major findings of APTIR.
He presented the highlights of the report and told that the forecast for 2011-2012 predicts India climbing to the top of the list of dynamic traders in Asia: export growing at 11.3% in 2011 and 13.3% in 2012. Compared to China, India’s economy is relatively less trade dependent which on the other hand helped the country’s resilience during the 2008-2009 global economy crisis.
Highlights of Asia-Pacific Trade and investment report-2011
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The recent trend is showing that Indian companies are starting to move away from labour-intensive services toward services that require higher skilled labour innovation and creativity.
The FDI inflows to India have been growing by 46% per year on average during the last five years although the country experienced a slowdown in FDI during the 2008-2009 economic crisis.
India has also emerged as a leading foreign investor, specially in financial services and communications. FDI outflow from India is increasing rapidly in Western Europe and Africa, which the growth rate was 37% & 74% in 2010.
India is in the world’s top ten countries ranked by discriminatory measures imposed and in the world’s top 20 target jurisdictions.
Indian exports will grow much further if the country could diversify its capability to meet intraregional demands from other major importers of the region & proper regulatory reforms is key to the expansion of trade in services.
The sophisticated India’s IT companies will continue to move up the value chain. However, infrastructure bottlenecks, shortage of skilled labour and difficulties involved in shifting resources from low-productivity agriculture to higher-productivity sector will need to be removed.
The estimated India’s Climate Smart Goods (CSG) exports potential are $4.976 bn within Asia-Pacific region and $1.01 bn with EU. India’s CSG export potential to Pakistan & Bangladesh is $4.4 bn. India should explore this potential trade and can stimulate to control climate change in the region.
India as one of the largest and most dynamic developing economies, has a unique opportunity to contribute to a positive result of the Doha Round. India and large developing countries of this region should work together towards improving and adapting the multilateral trading system to respond to the challenges confronting developing countries.
This summit also showcased the launch of a book on “Fighting Irrelevance: The Role of Regional Trade Agreements in International Production Networks in Asia” wherein there are various case studies from across the Asian countries. As a contributor to this book Prof. Biswajit Nag, Associate Professor, IIFT said, “This is a wonderful effort from ARTNet/UN-ESCAP to document the dynamics of International Production Network (IPN) in Asia. Researchers from different countries have worked in the project and looked into how IPN is evolving here with respect to the network between SMEs and MNCs and proliferation of Free Trade Agreements. The book has also looked into the literature of Global Value Chains and analyzed how Asian dynamics are different from those of Europeans and Americans”.
Excerpt from the book; The presumption is that an RTA should increase the depth of the production networks, as the formal reciprocal trade liberalization agreement between countries are meant to smooth the channels for movement of goods, services and resources among the countries concerned.
The study revealed that based on the perception of the respondent in the five selected countries, formal trade agreements were not considered a major driving force in strengthening IPNs; rather, it relies on market initiatives. In addition, given that the negotiation approach of many of these agreements is so-called “positive-list” the exclusion of a number of industries from trade agreements meant that they would have not received the benefits from regional liberalization efforts in any case.