By Kavaljit Singh | Letter (FT) | September 21, 2018
Martin Sandbu rightly warns about the diminishing role of the IMF as a crisis manager (Free Lunch, September 19). The challenges faced by the fund are much bigger than its lack of financial resources to put out fires. The current financial market turmoil in Argentina shows the IMF’s standby loan of $50bn — the largest ever credit line in IMF history — has failed to provide an effective anchor for addressing financial vulnerabilities and bolstering market confidence.
By Kavaljit Singh | Research Report | September 2018
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers that set off a chain of events that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The global financial crisis of 2008 was a watershed moment for the global banking industry as it revealed a pattern of excessive risk-taking by private banks to maximize short-term profits along with shortcomings in the regulatory framework. The financial crisis has reignited an intense debate on the…
By Kavaljit Singh | Briefing Paper # 23 | September 4, 2018
Argentina’s currency crisis is deepening. On August 29, the peso crashed more than 7 percent – the biggest one-day fall since December 2015 when President Mauricio Macri allowed the currency to float freely and removed capital controls. In a two-minute televised address on that day, Mr Macri said he had requested the International Monetary Fund to early release funds from a $50 billion stand-by arrangement. The televised address by President Macri did not help to eliminate market uncertainty….
While nearly 90 members did not support discussions on investment facilitation at the WTO’s Eleventh Ministerial Conference held in Buenos Aires in December 2017, a group of 70 members decided to launch a plurilateral initiative. Broadly speaking, investment facilitation refers to measures aimed at helping investors to start, operate and exit their businesses. Aimed at removing ground-level obstacles, it seeks to enhance the investment environment by improving transparency and predictability of investment policies, streamlining administrative procedures and adopting tools to…
Japan has been in the news as the flag bearer of free trade in current times. This is particularly so after the USA under President Trump has been questioning international trade rules, be it the multilateral WTO or the regional NAFTA and the withdrawal from TPP. This, however, does not mean that the USA is withdrawing from trade liberalisation. It will pursue that through bilateral FTAs (free trade agreements). It only wants a better deal for American interests.
