Developing countries in Asia have a large stake in maintaining an open global system of trade and investment. The integration of the region into the world economy has been driven largely by market forces, particularly by private foreign direct investment and the related rise of intra-industry trade.

The 147 member governments of WTO agreed on 1 August 2004 to commence negotiations on trade facilitation. This decision followed a heated and protracted debate on trade facilitation among WTO member countries that started after the Singapore Ministerial Meeting in 1996 and contributed, together with three other so-called “Singapore issues”, to the failure of the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Cancun in 2003.

Globalization and pressure from increased competition have led to “splintering” of in-house services from formerly integrated manufacturing firms in developed economies and, at the same time, to an increase in “outsourcing” of these same services. These two trends have caused a stronger linkage in services and manufacturing in economic data because services which were previously lumped with manufacturing are now recorded separately and, in a sense, given identity. The study tries to shed some light on this linkage in the Philippine case.

Bi-directional effects between international trade and investment are investigated. Different aspects of international trade are considered in separate models to observe the linkages between trade and FDI inflows. International trade, either measured by exports or imports, is found to be complementary with FDI inflows. Through trade, trade facilitation is identified as a key factor to induce FDI inflows to the host country from the home country.

Investment liberalization occupies an important place in the schemes of regional economic integration complementing trade liberalization to facilitate the process of restructuring of industry on more efficient lines. This restructuring enables fuller exploitation of the locational advantages or synergies between the member countries of the regional trading bloc besides facilitating businesses reaping the economies of scale and specialization.

On 17 July 2007, prior to the meeting of the WTO-TNC on July 26, 2007, the Chairman of the WTO Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Ambassador Don Stephenson of Canada, circulated a draft text on NAMA modalities titled Chairman’s Introduction to the Draft NAMA Modalities. In the draft modalities the NAMA Chairman came up with a number of suggestions towards further liberalization of industrial tariffs...

In the Third Industrial Master Plan, several service sub-sectors were identified as new sources of growth for the country, including education services. Apart from this sector’s contribution towards growth, private higher education institutions (PHEIs) can also contribute towards increasing access to education and equity. Malaysia aims to be a global education hub by 2010. In view of the above, this study aims to explore the trade and investment links in private higher education in Malaysia.

The contribution of trade in services and associated remittances to the economies of developing countries is increasingly being recognized and the liberalization of the movement of natural persons (Mode 4 trade under GATS) is seen by many as an effective to ensure developing countries benefit from globalization. In that context, this study aimed at assessing the impact of remittances by women migrant workers on poverty reduction in Nepal.

The impact of international trade and investment policy reforms on the Indonesian economy, focusing on economic growth and development of domestic manufacturing industry has been studied extensively enough. However, the implication of these trade and investment policy reforms on the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia remains an under-researched area of both the literature on SMEs in Indonesia and in general.

The global automotive industry, increasingly characterized by global mergers and relocation of production centers to emerging developing economies, is in the grips of a global price-war. The industry is subject to imperfect competition which has resulted in too much of everything — too much capacity, too many competitors and too much redundancy and overlap. The industry is concerned with consumer demands for styling, safety, and comfort; and with labor relations and manufacturing efficiency.