OPINION | World Economic Forum
� A NEW YEAR, A NEW DEAL? As the US cans its commitment to the Trans-Pacific Partnership( TPP), a new deal stepped into the spotlight in Davos. Can the planned Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership( RCEP) – which currently includes ASEAN nations and their trade partners – deliver the frameworks needed for future inclusive growth in the region?
ASEAN economic integration has already delivered significant benefits for small and medium-size enterprises, as well as encouraging a fintech revolution, according to Anthony F. Fernandes, Group Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia Bhd.
Elsewhere, questions around the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement( NAFTA) also loomed large.
� WHITHER THE WTO? The week closed with the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement( TFA) on the verge of entry into force, with just two countries now needed to ratify in order to secure the required support. The TFA, once in play, will create binding obligations on countries to undertake customs reforms that should help to reduce trade costs and speed goods through borders.
Looking ahead, WTO members are preparing for a ministerial conference scheduled for December in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a list of talking points that includes domestic agriculture subsidies,
food security, harmful fisheries subsidies, and services trade and investment facilitation, as well as issues of interest for least developed countries, e-commerce and small businesses.
� GOODBYE EU, HELLO WORLD After months of speculation, UK Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled – first in London and then in Davos – a plan to extricate Britain from the EU single market, negotiate a free trade deal with the bloc, and build a global Britain.
The UK may have its work cut out, given the time it takes to hammer out trade deals, and may have to wait its turn among the 17 other countries currently negotiating with the EU, according to some experts. London will also have to rectify its arrangements at the WTO and with the 40-plus existing EU trade partners.
It will also have to renegotiate its relationship with Donald Trump in the US. And if anyone thought Brexit has made the future look uncertain,“ I think the change of administration in the US has introduced an even bigger piece of uncertainty,” said Philip Hammond, Britain’ s Chancellor of the Exchequer.
� INVISIBLE BORDERS In one day, more data comes off a GE Power gas turbine than a person could put on social media in a year, according to GE President and chief executive officer
Steve Bolze, who added that software had dramatically changed the way the company does business.“ The industrial internet will be two times as big as the digital internet,” he says.
The question is how best to manage cross-border data flows – a core feature of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – at the same time as building consumer trust, protecting privacy and tackling cyber crime.“ Focus on knowledge crossing borders as the driver of new globalisation, and goods crossing of the old. There’ s still some old globalisation, but it’ s a different mindset, and it has many different implications for policy,” said Richard Baldwin of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.
� INVESTMENT REFORM When it came to the global cross-border investment regime, there was a wind of change( or at least reform) blowing through Davos, with discussion afoot between ministers and other stakeholders as to a new investment court proposed by the European Union and Canadian government. It would be a permanent international, multilateral body that would adjudicate disputes under future and existing investment treaties. Q
This is an edited article of a piece which first appeared on the World Economic Forum website: www. weforum. org
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