Border Trouble

Post-Brexit, the UK will remain part of the EU customs union and quite possibly of its single market as well. That is the gist of the tentative agreement reached on December 08 in Brussels between both parties. The UK’s continued

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Ross Jackson: Stemming the Flow of Refugees – An Holistic Approach

The unprecedented surge of refugees streaming into Europe is no doubt due to the ongoing wars in Syria and Iraq and the unstable situation in Libya. However, refugees were arriving in Europe long before these wars began. They will continue

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Ross Jackson: A Silver Lining to Europe’s Troubles

As we await the outcome of the four-month extension of the Greek credit arrangement with the Troika (EU, IMF, ECB), this is a good time to consider various possible scenarios. Indeed, I would like to outline the one scenario that

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OECD: Time, Trade and Trade Facilitation

Time is money and a lot of money and opportunities are being lost due to painstakingly long customs procedures, waiting times at ports and long lead times. Although “time is money” is a universal idiom, few have looked into how

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WTO Forecasts Gradual Recovery Despite Cut in Trade Forecasts

World trade growth in 2013 and 2014 is likely to be slower than previously forecast. WTO economists now predict 2013 growth of 2.5% (down from the 3.3% forecast in April) and 4.5% in 2014 (down from 5.0%), but they say

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Aid for Trade: Supporting the World’s Poorest

The Heads of Agency of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) – Aid for Trade in action for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – met in Geneva on 8 July during the Fourth Global Review of Aid for Trade. The Heads of

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Summit Commitments of the G8 Leaders

Extracted from Remarks made by David Cameron on Thursday 18th June. Our economies together make up around half of the global economy, and we have a responsibility to support prosperity worldwide. We agreed actions in three specific areas: Trade –

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WTO and Aid for Trade: Connecting to Value Chains

The WTO has announced the agenda for the Fourth Global Review of Aid for Trade to be held on 8-10 July. The theme of this year’s event is “Connecting to Value Chains”. The review will focus on the development implications

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Dr. Ross Jackson: Tackling the Global Crisis

With crisis all around us at this critical time in history, it is time to start asking ourselves some hard questions that are not normally part of the daily political discourse. Let us step back for a moment and take

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WTO on the Future of Trade: It’s All about Convergence

Extracts from an address by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, April 24th According to the Panel, “Regulating trade opening is only one of the many challenges facing a rapidly integrating world economy. But it is also one where we already have

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