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 handle inquiries or complaints by investors. Such measures are often seen as a means to attract FDI and maximize its contribution to development.

Notwithstanding that investment…

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.

USA and Japan each have their ambitions for the Asia Pacific region. Japan is a big market for US goods, including for agricultural products and pharmaceuticals. While…

On June 28, 2018, the Indian rupee plunged to an all-time low of 69.10 against the US dollar amid growing concerns over tightening of global financial conditions and higher crude oil prices coupled with the worsening of domestic macroeconomic variables especially the current account balance and inflation.

The mad rush for dollar by importers and currency speculators was halted temporarily after the central bank, Reserve Bank of India, aggressively intervened in the currency markets by selling dollars in both spot and forward markets to arrest the slide in the rupee. If the RBI had not intervened in the currency markets on that day, the rupee…

On May 4, the Banco Central de la Republica Argentina, the country’s central bank, raised policy interest rates to a whopping 40 percent to stem the rapid depreciation of the national currency, the peso. The surprise rate increase was the third in a week after the central bank failed to halt the decline in the peso by spending $4.3 billion of foreign exchange reserves in just one week. In addition, the Argentine authorities reduced fiscal deficit target and announced new measures to calm the markets.

Market observers were confident that rapid-fire rate hikes and other measures will restore currency stability, but the Argentine peso plunged…

There is no clear picture emerging with respect to trade relations amongst countries. But it is much clearer that countries like USA that pushed ‘free trade’ are now having second thoughts about how open they want their economies to be. While protectionism is re-emerging stronger than before, new free trade agreements (FTAs) continue to be in the making.

There have been developments in the first quarter of 2018 both in Asia and Africa, which are important to recap here. Some new acronyms, like CPTPP & AfCFTA, have been added to the world’s list of trade rules. It is also important to know of any spillover…