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Towards a Coherent
Trade and Development Strategy of India
24-25 July
2008,
New Delhi |
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Global Partnership
for Development
Where do we stand
and where to go?
12-13 August
2008,
New Delhi |
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Strengthening Skills
on Commercial & Economic Diplomacy
Training Programme
for
Civil Servants and Executives
(CDS.06)
18-21 August 2008,
Jaipur, India |
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Stakeholders Consultation
Regional
Economic Cooperation in South Asia with
a Focus on India-Sri Lanka Trade
21 August 2008,
Kochi, Kerala |
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Stakeholders
Consultation
Regional
Economic Cooperation in South Asia with a
Focus on India-Bangladesh Trade
19 September 2008, Kolkata, West Bengal |
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CUTS-Commonwealth Secretariat Session at
the WTO Public Forum 2008
The Missing Link between
Trade Openness & Poverty Reduction
24 September 2008, Geneva |
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CUTS-FES-Evian Group Session at the WTO
Public Forum 2008
What Future for Global
Economic Governance?
25 September 2008, Geneva |
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EVENT
REPORTS |
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State Level Advocacy Workshop
Mainstreaming
International Trade and National Development
Strategy in India
5 July, 2008
Kolkata, India |
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National
Seminar
National Foreign Trade Policy of India:
Why is civil society’s involvement required?
1-2 July
2008
New Delhi, India |
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International
Trade and its Reach at the Grassroots-an
analysis of Research findings from Rajasthan
June 17, 2008
Jaipur, India |
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RESEARCH REPORTS |
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Trade
Liberalisation, Growth and Poverty in Bangladesh |
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Is the Stage set for
Mainstreaming Trade into National Development
Strategy of India?
Results of Field Survey
in Two States |
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Political Economy
of Trade Liberalisation in Bangladesh
Impact
of Trade Liberalisation on Bangladesh Agriculture |
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WORKING PAPERS |
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Domestic
Preparedness for
Services Trade Liberalisation
Are South
Asian countries prepared for further liberalisation? |
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Trade,
Poverty Reduction and the Integrated Framework
Are
we asking the right people the right questions? |
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World
Food Price Increase
Where
Does the Buck Stop? |
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BRIEFING PAPERS |
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Do
India’s AEZs Need a Fresh Start? |
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SAARC and BIMSTEC
Understanding their Experience in Regional
Cooperation |
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‘Energising’ India’s Development
through Economic Diplomacy |
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VIEWPOINT PAPERS |
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The Doha Round of
Negotiations on Rules
The State
of Play |
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Doha
Round of Negotiations on Agricultue
The
Current State of Play |
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Doha
Round of Negotiations on Non Agricultural
Market Access
The
Current State of Play |
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MISCELLANEOUS |
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US too plays «TRUMP»
card? |
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CUTS Memorandum
to the Trade Ministers of G-20 Group of
WTO Member Countries
Why G-20 unity
is necessary at this crucial juncture of
the Doha Round of negotiations? |
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CUTS CITEE Weekly
Bulletin
July 13-19, 2008
Previous Issues>> |
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CUTS Memorandum
to the Commerce & Industry Minister
of India on
India’s
Strategy in the Doha Round at the current
juncture |
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Visits and...
June 2008
Previous Records... |
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Dossier on Preferential
Trade Agreements
June 2008
Previous
Issues... |
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| Trade
Updates April 2008 |
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Accra 2008: the bumpy
road to aid
effectiveness in
agriculture
ODI, April 2008
The 2005 Paris
Declaration on Aid
Effectiveness will be
reviewed at the Third
High-Level Forum on
Aid Effectiveness in
Accra in September
2008. The Paris
Declaration
establishes operating
principles for donors
and recipient
governments to improve
the effectiveness of
aid. These include
government leadership
of the development
process, a focus on
policy results,
greater alignment by
donors with national
policies and
management systems,
harmonisation between
donors with division
of labour, and mutual
accountability for
development results.
<<More>>
Living standards widen
among nations
Press Trust of
India, April
30, 2008
Despite improvements in world GDP, the relative gap in living
standards between
developed and the
developing countries
remains large, says
the UN Conference on
Trade and Development
(UNCTAD). According to
UNCTAD, the per capita
income of developed
countries in 2006 was
18 times higher than
that of developing
countries as compared
to 23 times in
1980. The recent
progress mainly
reflects rapid
economic advances in
East and
South Asia.
<<More>>
Regional growth
will keep Asia on
track
The Associated
Press, April 30, 2008
The economic
engines of India and
China will help keep
Asia-Pacific economies
on track amid a global
slowdown, but a
protracted U.S. slump
and rising inflation
pose possible hazards,
a report said
Wednesday. The most
significant threat to
the region's
macroeconomic
stability is
inflation, in
particular the recent
surge in food and oil
prices, according to
the report by Standard
& Poor's Ratings
Services. "There are
some visible threats
to the region in the
form of food and
energy prices, which
may adversely affect
performance over the
next couple of years,"
said S&P Asia-Pacific
chief economist, Subir
Gokarn, according to a
statement. The most
important challenge
facing regional policy
makers was managing
inflation while
sustaining economic
performance, Gokarn
said.
<<More>>
UN Sets Up Task Force
To Tackle Food Crisis
World Bank, April
29, 2008
UN
agencies and the World
Bank will set up a task
force on food to deal
with the rise in global
food prices. The
initiative is a reaction
to the dramatic
escalation in food
prices worldwide,
which has evolved into a
challenge of global
proportions that has
become a crisis for the
world's most vulnerable,
including the urban
poor.
<<More>>
US subsidies
killing off EU biodiesel
producers, trade group
complains
EU Observer,
April 29, 2008
While the pressure on
biofuels increases
globally over concerns
that the alternative
energy source
contributes to global
warming and the food
crisis, European and
American biodiesel
producers are caught in
their own internecine
dispute over subsidies.
<<More>>
Food crisis:
UN to reveal battle plan
AFP, April 28, 2008
United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was set Monday
to lead a concerted effort by 27 key UN
agencies to tackle the growing crisis caused
by a worldwide sharp rise in basic foodstuff
prices. The UN was scheduled at a two-day
conference in the Swiss capital Bern to
reveal a battle plan of emergency measures,
while exploring other longer-term measures
to solve the world's food crisis.
<<More>>
America
needs to make a new case
for trade
Financial Times, April 28, 2008
While the financial
crisis dominates current
discussion on the US
economy, questions
regarding America’s
future approach to
globalisation are
looming increasingly
large.
Since the end of the
second world war,
American economic policy
has supported an
integrated global
economy, stimulating
development in poor
countries, particularly
in Asia, at
unprecedented rates. Yet
America’s commitment to
internationalist
economic policy is ever
more in doubt.
<<More>>
Neighbours get
hurt in India`s war on
inflation
Business Standard,
April 28, 2008
India's necessity to
curb inflation has cost
its neighbours dear,
with countries like
Nepal facing severe
shortage of essential
commodities like rice
and cement whose exports
have been curbed. The
curbs have also hit Sri
Lanka, Bangladesh and
Bhutan, all members of
the South Asian
Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC). The
situation is alarming
and poses a threat to
India's economic
diplomacy and political
clout in the region.
<<More>>
EU should export not
change its farm policy,
says French minister
EU Observer, April 28,
2008
Developing countries
should be inspired by the
EU's common agriculture
policy, French agriculture
minister Michel Barnier
has said. His German
colleague, Horst Seehofer,
recently made similar
calls to keep the bloc's
farm subsidies untouched
amid the current global
food crisis.
<<More>>
Just growth won’t
work: rethinking
development strategies
Business and Finance
Review, April 28, 2008
After the
failed decade of "aid
development", the World
Bank has been very vocal
about its distributional
concerns and shifted from
growth promotion to pro-poor
growth. Nevertheless, the
language shift is bigger
than the underlying facts,
as the term “pro-poor
growth” is essentially
misleading.
<<More>>
Food instability sparks
debate on farming and
consumerism
Jamaica Gleaner, April 27,
2008
New international fault lines
are emerging at the point where
concerns about
climate
change,
agriculture, food and energy
meet. They run between nations
in the developed world, the
emerging markets of China,
Brazil and
India,
to the smaller nations of the
developing world such as those
in the Caribbean. They carry
with them the threat of hunger
and instability and raise much
broader questions about the
global distribution of wealth.
<<More>>
GSP + duty free benefits not lost
yet – EC
Financial Times,
April 27, 2008
The European Commission (EC),
amidst a growing debate in the
media and political circles over
the GSP+ being linked to human
rights violations, repeated its
assertion – as has been the case
in recent months - that no
decision has been reached on this
scheme and that there is no reason
to assume Sri Lanka would be
disqualified from the preferential
trade scheme by the end of the
year. “There seems to be an
impression that the loss of the
GSP+ is a done deal. I want to
emphasise that nothing is further
from the truth. There has been no
decision made yet. The review,
which is a technical procedure,
takes place in the fourth quarter
of this year,” said the Head of
Operations of the Delegation of
the European Commission to Sri
Lanka and the Maldives, Peter
Maher, earlier this week. Maher
was addressing businesses at a
seminar organised by the Sri
Lanka-Poland Business Council.
<<More>>
US cites
China,
Russia for
failing to protect intellectual
property
AFP, April 26, 2008
The
United States on Friday named
China and Russia as among the
worst protectors of intellectual
property rights, flooding global
trade with counterfeit items such
as DVDs, designer bags, medicines
and software. In an annual report
on intellectual property rights
protection, the US Trade
Representative's office singled
out
China
and Russia for allegedly failing
to respect US patents and
copyrights. The Special 301
Report, named after the section of
US law on which it is based,
spotlights "one of the central
challenges facing the global
economy," USTR Susan Schwab said.
<<More>>
India: Committee debates
futures trade in farm
commodities
Trading Markets, April 25,
2008
A
high-level committee set up by
the Indian government has become
deeply divided over whether
futures trading in agricultural
commodities has resulted in an
escalation of food prices.
Abhijit Sen, member of the
Planning Commission, favoured
the continuance of an existing
ban on sensitive staples.
Several members of the
committee however stated
that there was not enough data
to show a clear link between
futures trading and the present
hike in food prices.
<<More>>
Food prices: UN food agency warns
of eroding capacity
The Hindu, April 25, 2008
The UN World Food Programme has sounded a fresh alarm that
fast rising food prices across the
globe are eroding its capacity to
serve millions of people already
dependent on it and the situation
could worsen with millions being
pushed into poverty forcing them
to seek its help. With the major
exporters, including
India, banning rice exports,
shortages are expected to be felt
around the world.
<<More>>
The Branding of Region
Tehelka, April 24, 2008
IT IS THE original black gold —
long before oil was discovered under
the desert sands, it was the lure of
this spice that had launched a
thousand ships. Columbus reached the
West Indies, but it was the Malabar
coast that was his real destination.
The treasure he was seeking to trade
in — pepper. The seafarer who did
reach the pepper coast, Vasco da
Gama, wanted his men to take back
saplings. King Zamorin of Calicut
(now ozhikode) was unfazed. “They
can’t take along our monsoon,” he is
supposed to have famously said.
<<More>>
The future of US fast track
Congress Daily, April 24, 2008
Fast track — the
expedited procedure that Congress
has long used to consider trade
legislation — might prove the
principal casualty of the
confrontation between the White
House and Capitol Hill over the
Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The
Constitution gives Congress the
ultimate authority to approve trade
deals. And, since the 1974 Trade
Act, Congress has agreed to vote up
or down in a timely fashion on trade
accords, forswearing its
constitutional right to amend
legislation.
<<More>>
EU institutions need to rethink
trade strategies
European Voice, April 24, 2008
What can developing countries expect
from regional trade deals with the
EU? ‘Raw Deal', a report published
this week by the World Development
Movement provides an answer.
Assessing the development impacts of
two existing EU bilateral trade
agreements – with South Africa and
Mexico – the report highlights a
range of negative impacts including:
balance of payment problems; reduced
tax revenue; reduced access to
credit for farmers, reduced ability
to regulate foreign investors
effectively and increased
unemployment.
<<More>>
EU commission investigates link
between biofuels and food crisis
euobserver.com, April 24, 2008
In the wake of mounting pressure from international
organisations such as the World Bank
and the United Nations World Food
Programme, European Commission
President Barroso has requested a
study on whether there is any
relationship between the recent
skyrocketing of food prices around the
world and biofuels.
<<More>>
UNCTAD urges governments do
more for women
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation,
April 23, 2008
The Secretary-General of UNCTAD,
Supachai Panitchpakdi, has asked
governments to do more for women and
not just pay lip service to gender
issues. He asked governments, civil
society organisations and policy
makers to raise the awareness of and
find empirical evidence to issues of
gender to enable interest groups to
be more forceful in their campaigns.
<<More>>
Civil Society Groups Call for
Establishment of Commission On
Globalisation
allafrica.com, April 23, 2008
Civil society groups have called for the establishment of a
new Commission on Globalisation and
Development Strategies within the
United Nations Conference on Trade and
evelopment (UNCTAD). A declaration by
civil society groups also asked for
the policy space mandate of UNCTAD to
be expanded.
<<More>>
Trade
Policies Need to Incorporate a 'Gender
Lens'
Commonwealth News
and Information Service, April 23,
2008
Increasing
capacity among policy makers to ensure
they apply a 'gender lens' at all
levels of trade policy formulation,
implementation and negotiation was one
of the key recommendations which
emerged from an event organised by the
Commonwealth Secretariat, in
collaboration with the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
<<More>>
It's not the price that causes
hunger
International Herald Tribune, April
22, 2008
International prices of rice, wheat
and corn have risen sharply, setting
off violent urban protests in roughly
a dozen countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America. But is this a "world
food crisis?" It is certainly a
troubling instance of price
instability in international commodity
markets, leading to social unrest
among urban food-buyers. But we must
be careful not to equate high crop
prices with hunger around the world.
Most of the world's hungry people do
not use international food markets,
and most of those who use these
markets are not hungry. International
food markets, like international
markets for everything else, are used
primarily by the prosperous and
secure, not the poor and vulnerable.
In world corn markets, the biggest
importer by far is Japan. Next comes
the European Union. Next comes South
Korea. Citizens in these countries are
not underfed. In the poor countries of
Asia, rice is the most important
staple, yet most Asian countries
import very little rice. As recently
as March, India was keeping imported
rice out of the country by imposing a
70 percent duty.
<<More>>
Poorest countries have yet
to benefit from trade liberalisation
UN News Centre, April 22,
2008
A senior
United Nations official has stated
that landlocked and least developed
countries (LDCs) have been further
marginalised as a result of trade
liberalisation. Cheick Sidi Diarra,
the UN’s High Representative for the
Least Developed Countries, Landlocked
Developing Countries and Small Island
Developing States, noted that
globalisation, which is supposed to
lead to economic growth and reduce
poverty, has served to deepen the
disparities between and within
countries.
<<More>>
EU heads for trade and climate
talks with China
Reuters, April 22 2008
A delegation of the
European Commission heads for Beijing
this week to progress from words to
action on China's soaring greenhouse
gas emissions and its tense trade ties
with Europe. The talks with the
Chinese leadership will also
address the handling of
pro-independence unrest in Tibet and
human rights in China.
<<More>>
UN Secretary-General Calls
for Free Trade On Global Market
Ghanaian Chronicle, April
22, 2008
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
has stressed the need for more free
trade in the global economy to boost
the economies of poor countries, as
trade has the tendency of lifting
those countries out of poverty.
The statement at the opening ceremony
of the UNCTADXII summit in Accra was
made in connection with soaring food
prices, climate change and the lag in
achieving development goals.
<<More>>
UNCTAD
XII Leaders Call for South-South Trade
Daily Guide, April 22,
2008
World leaders attending the 12th
United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development have called for further
expansion of the South-South Trade
among African countries- a shift which
they believe will enhance and deepen
future trade and development on the
continent.
<<More>>
WTO DDG tight-lipped on bio-fuel
factor, rising prices
The Financial Express, April 21, 2008
Will the changed
situation of soaring global food prices
and the highly subsidized bio-fuel
programme in Europe and in the US find
place in the revised texts for the
upcoming negotiations for multilateral
trade ? The WTO deputy director-general,
Harsha Vardhan Singh could not give any
satisfactory answer. He said "revised
draft texts on agriculture and NAMA are
expected towards the end of this month or
early May. The 12th UNCTAD meeting in
Accra in Ghana is taking stock of the
situation relating to trade and
development."
<<More>>
WTO chief calls for aid rethink
BBC News, April 19, 2008
The head of the World Trade
Organization, Pascal Lamy, has called for
aid policies to be refocused to improve
agriculture. Lamy said food aid needs to be
increased but, more than that, improvements
in agriculture need to be put back at the
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