On November 15, 2020, 15 East Asian countries agreed to take their economic integration several notches higher by forging the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the largest free trade agreement (FTA) ever. In 2019, RCEP members accounted for about 30 percent of world output and population and 28 percent of world trade. But about 44 percent of their total trade was intra-RCEP, which is a major incentive for the members of this agreement to agree to the deal, for…
By Kavaljit Singh | Briefing Paper # 43 | November 30, 2020
On November 20, the Reserve Bank of India released the Report the Internal Working Group (IWG) that reviewed the existing licensing and regulatory guidelines relating to ownership, control, and corporate structure of private sector banks in India. The working group’s most significant but contentious recommendation is to allow large corporate and industrial houses to promote and run banks in India. “Large corporate/industrial houses may be permitted to promote banks only after necessary amendments to the Banking Regulations Act, 1949”
By Smitha Francis | Commentary | November 24, 2020
One of the integral components of the economic stimulus packages announced by the Indian government since April 2020 is the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme meant to increase India’s self-reliance in key manufacturing sectors. To eligible companies, the scheme offers an incentive of 4% to 6% on their incremental sales of goods manufactured in India (over 2019-20), for a period of five years. The first tranche of the PLI scheme was announced on April 1 for mobile phones and certain electronic…
By Biswajit Dhar and KM Gopakumar | Briefing Paper # 42 | November 4, 2020
Access to medicines at prices that the patients can afford has been a recurrent concern for the global community ever since the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) was adopted as one of the covered agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO). The TRIPS Agreement is a charter for strengthening intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection and enforcement and over the past 25 years, there are instances galore where holders of intellectual property (IP) have…
The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest health and economic crisis in a generation. Some governments are taking extraordinary measures to fight the pandemic, in order to save lives, protect jobs, and avoid economic disaster. But the little known Investor-State Dispute Settlement system, or ISDS, included in many trade deals, could pressure governments to roll back public-interest measures, or pay millions in compensation to corporations.
ISDS allows foreign companies to sue governments for measures that might impact their profits.
