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The WTI Offers Views on Innovation Strategies in Service Industries Pierre Sauvé, the WTI's Deputy Managing Director and Director of Studies and Co-Leader of the NCCR-Trade work package on preferential trade, took part on 25–27 November 2009 in InnoTrade 2009, a regional seminar held in Managua, Nicaragua and co-sponsored by the Centre for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development of INCAE, Latin America's leading business school, and the German development cooperation agencies InWent and GTZ. The seminar brought together a group of experts drawn from Central America's public and private sectors and focused particular attention on the design of trade-related innovation strategies for small- and medium-sized firms in the region. Pierre Sauvé's keynote address examined the topic of innovation strategies in the service sector and the contribution of trade and investment liberalization in sustaining exports of innovation-intensive services. A copy of the seminar programme and of Pierre Sauvé's presentation are attached. WTI at the 4th Annual Conference of the Trade Policy Training Centre in Africa (Trapca) Trapca is on track to become the leading African trade policy training institute. The 4th Annual Conference (Arusha, 26–27 November 2009) brought together over 100 persons from research, politics, NGOs and business. The conference theme – the impact of the financial and economic crisis on Africa – was discussed from different perspectives and compared in a number of papers and by discussants from various backgrounds with the situation in other regions. African vulnerability and African solutions emerged as a common thread of the debates. Christian Häberli represented WTI/NCCR with two contributions. In addition, a programming discussion with the trapca management paved the way for an intensified institutional cooperation on the basis of the WTI-trapca framework agreement concluded in 2008. World Food Summit 2009: WTI/NCCR invited to join preparatory work Christian Häberli, NCCR Senior Research Fellow, represented the WTI at the "High Level Expert Forum on 'How to Feed the World in 2050'" from 12-13 October 2009 in Rome. His summary report shows that trade and investment issues are singularly absent from the present institutional and conceptual framework on global food security. WTI Deputy Managing Director Pierre Sauvé addresses CIGI'09 Every autumn, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) hosts its annual conference. This landmark event brings together accomplished researchers, policy makers, business leaders and journalists to define and debate issues of critical global importance and to identify innovative practices that can assist in meeting global challenges. CIGI '09 - Towards a Global New Deal, addressed the systemic impacts of the global economic crisis and the long-term prospects for international economic governance. This year’s event, was hosted at CIGI’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, on October 2-4, 2009, and featured a keynote address by the 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Dr. Paul Krugman. The conference addressed two broad themes. First, the impact of the current global economic crisis on the ability of various governance systems to manage globalization and policy priorities. For this theme, speakers discussed the effects of the crisis on global finance, trade and investment, food security and poverty, and environmental challenges. Second, participants debated the shifting role of the state in economic governance, the role of policy coordination and the long-term impact of short-term policy reactions to the crisis. WTI Deputy Managing Director and Director of Studies Pierre Sauvé spoke in the conference's opening panel on "Stress Testing Trade and Investment Regimes". His remarks centered on the challenges posed by the recent rise in trade and investment protectionism. He drew attention to the distinction that needed to be made between the cyclical and more structural forces at play as the world's center of economic gravity pursues its eastward march. He recalled that the crisis had revealed how trade and investment protection targeted policy areas that are weakly (or not) constrained by effective multilateral disciplines. He emphasized the need to revisit and revamp the global trade and investment architecture, notably in the areas of investment and competition, to plug many holes and weaknesses in existing WTO rules by completing the Doha Round. Looking to the future, he drew attention on how best to embed greater doses of variable geometry in WTO agenda-setting and decision-making. To view the conference agenda, see http://www.cigionline.org/cigi09/. A copy of Pierre Sauvé's power point presentation is appended. The WTI at the WTO Public Forum 2009 WTI Managing Director Prof. Thomas Cottier and Deputy Managing Director Pierre Sauvé spoke in separate panels at the WTO’s Public Forum on 30 September 2009. Prof. Cottier’s address focused on the topic of progressive regulation in a panel devoted to Special and Differential Treatment jointly hosted by the WTI and WTI Advisors. His remarks were based on his ongoing work on progressive regulation in the field of prescriptive rules, a concept first mooted in a November 2006 article that appeared in the Journal of International Economic Law (http://jiel.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/jgl029v1). The title of the panel was: Special and differential or equal and equitable? Systemic logic and the tailored integration of developing countries and least-developed countries into the world trading system The panel was moderated by Hannes Schloemann (WTI Advisors) and consisted of the following speakers: Mr Bernard Hoekman — Sector Director of the Trade Department (PRMTR) in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Vice-Presidency (PRMVP), The World Bank, Washington D.C. Prof. Dr. Thomas Cottier — Managing Director, World Trade Institute, Bern, and Professor of European and International Economic Law, University of Bern Mr Peter Tulloch, Consultant; formerly Director, Development Division and Director, TPR Division, WTO Secretariat Dr. Edwini Kessie, Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation, World Trade Organization An audio file of the discussion can be found here. Pierre Sauvé spoke on the challenge of fitting developmental objectives into the WTO’s selfishly mercantilistic machinery in the Doha Round in a panel organized by the University of Windsor entitled “The WTO as a Crucial Component of the Global Governance Architecture: Past Lessons and Future Challenges”. A power point summary of his remarks is attached. The title of the panel was: WTO as a crucial component of the global governance architecture: Past lessons and future challenges The panel was moderated by Ms Heidi Ulrich (Independent Trade Analyst) and consisted of the following speakers: Ms Anna Lanoszka — Professor of International Economic Relations, University of Windsor Mr Pierre Sauvé — Deputy Managing Director, World Trade Institute (WTI) Mr J.P. Singh — Professor, Georgetown University, Washington DC An audio file of the discussion can be found here.   The Redesign of the WTO and other Multilateral Economic Organizations Book Launch and Round Table Discussion 24 September 2009, 18.30-20.00,Silva Casa Auditorium, World Trade Institute, Hallerstrasse 6, Berne, Switzerland This event consists of the book launch of "Redesigning the World Trade Organization for the Twenty-first Century”. The book presentation will be followed by a round table discussion on the challenges and prospects of reforming today’s multilateral economic organizations. Participants: Prof. Thomas Cottier, World Trade Institute, University of Bern, Switzerland (chair) Prof. Bessma Momani, Departments of Political Science and History, University of Waterloo, Canada Prof. Debra Steger, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada Mr. Julio Lacarte, Former Ambassador of Uruguay (invited) Dr. Manfred Elsig, World Trade Institute, University of Bern, Switzerland If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact TRAPCA Second Annual Trade Policy Forum, 30–31 July 2009, Arusha, Tanzania The Trade Policy Training Center in Africa (TRAPCA) Second Annual Trade Policy Forum took place from 30–31 July 2009 in Arusha, Tanzania. It focused on trade issues of particular interest to Least Developed Countries (LDCs), such as tariff escalation and preference erosion, the lack of legislation on trade remedies in LDCs and how LDCs could use predatory dumping, the effects of climate change on livelihoods and agricultural exports and negotiating issues in the Doha Round. Since the WTI has a formal institutional cooperation agreement with TRAPCA, Marion Panizzon was invited to present her paper on GATS Mode 4 and bilateral migration agreements. The paper discusses the request of LDCs for more openings for low-skilled labour in mode 4 as a one way to rebalance the high-skill bias of WTO Members’ commitments in Mode 4, which, left unregulated can exacerbate brain drain. The paper argues that the missing regulatory mandate in GATS to manage risks and challenges of migration has led LDCs and destination countries alike to search for bilateral solutions instead. For more information see: http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/sn2/background%20docs/Trapca%20Forum2009.pdf World Bank Conference on Diaspora and Development 13–14 July 2009, Washington, DC In times of economic downturn, remittances from migrants become a crucial source of finance, as official development aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows decrease. Remittances are more resilient to economic crisis than these two other types of capital flows; they are possibly countercyclical, as they do not significantly slow in crisis times and are thus more stable than FDI. The new remittances record of 283 billion US dollars in 2008, is nonetheless expected to fall in 2009 between 0.2 and 6% of GDP, but this decline is smaller than that of other private or official development assistance, which Dilip Ratha from the World Bank has projected will fall by a quarter to a third. Scientific Diasporas are becoming crucial actors in transfer of know how, while governments in destination countries are experimenting with policy tools to channel collective remittances of hometown associations into productive investments by their communities of origin. To better understand the panoply of policies and private initiatives aimed at harnessing the material and intangible wealth of the Diasporas, the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects Group organised the Conference on Diaspora and Development from 13–14 July 2009 in Washington, DC. From over 200 papers, 30 studies from researchers, government officials, and members of the Diaspora were selected and their authors invited to present their findings. Marion Panizzon from the WTI was one of the participants and she presented a paper on France’s co-development policies entitled: ‘Does Co-Development Contribute to more Diaspora Entrepreneurship?’ She described the paradigm shift initiated by France’s immigration law of 24 July 2006 away from co-financing collective remittances towards tax breaks for migrants savings. This new and more individualized strategy mobilizes individual members of the Diaspora to channel remittances into enterprise creation by an intricate system of rewards and penalties. Her paper argues that source country governments, such as Senegal, have replicated France’s policy tools to attract Diaspora investment and this may be France’s most successful achievement in formalizing the transnational contribution of Diaspora to development. To read more go to: http://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove/diaspora-conference-what-a-successful-event |