The report forecasts global economic growth to 2.6% in 2024, barely above the 2.5% threshold commonly associated with a recessionary phase. The report says the prevailing focus on inflation overshadows urgent issues like trade disruptions, climate change and rising inequalities. It advocates for structural reforms and coordinated global efforts, proposing …
The pandemic has redefined the world economy in ways that will deepen inequality and can only be reversed if a global transformation in attitudes towards trade and development allows the whole world to recover together, the UN trade body UNCTAD said, in a report. The report, Impact of the Pandemic …
Global trade in food products has proven remarkably resilient during the pandemic, with developing countries even managing to increase export revenues, according to a new report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Data available through June "suggest strong, albeit not complete, resilience of the …
The Review of Maritime Transport 2020 provides an update on the latest trends in maritime trade, supply, markets, key performance indicators, and legal and regulatory developments. It also includes a special chapter with testimonials from maritime stakeholders and their experiences in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has …
In accordance with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision for augmenting people’s participation and transparency in the governance, Ministry of Shipping has issued the draft of Coastal Shipping Bill, 2020 for suggestions from the stakeholders and general public. As the shipping sector grows and evolves in the country, a need …
This report is the third in the “Trade Finance in Africa” research series. It uses a standardized survey of commercial banks to provide a comprehensive study of the trade finance landscape in Africa for the nine years leading up to 2019. The aim is to provide data that set a …
Rapid urbanization in Africa south of the Sahara continues to highlight the importance of informal retailers as a source of both food and employment for the urban poor. The most recent Africa Agriculture Status Report emphasizes that, due to demographic and socioeconomic transformation in the region, the center of gravity …
Agri-food production remains vital to the economies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Food systems are rapidly changing and are driven by income growth, (urban) population growth, shifts in dietary preferences, and agricultural productivity growth. Food systems are also under threat from disrupters like climate change and distorting policies …
Millions of used cars, vans and minibuses exported from Europe, the United States and Japan to the developing world are of poor quality, contributing significantly to air pollution and hindering efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The …
The publication titled, ‘Trade and Development Report 2020: From Global Pandemic to Prosperity for All: Avoiding Another Lost Decade,’ finds that the global economy will contract by over 4%, trade will shrink by approximately one-fifth, foreign direct investment will contract up to 40%, and remittances will decrease by over USD …
The 2020 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor, the third in this series of flagship reports, presents an overview of trade in agriculture products in Africa and highlights the main impediments that affect intra- and extra-African trade. This year’s report includes chapters focusing on intra-Africa trade integration for agricultural products, including the …
Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Amit Jain Vs Union of India & Others dated 10/09/2020. The issue for consideration was the remedial action against cheap waste paper and the road sweep waste import for firing of brick kilns. According to the applicant, 900,000 tons of …
International trade in goods is expected to continue its nosedive in the coming months as economies struggle to recover from lockdown measures used to slow the COVID-19 outbreak. New UNCTAD data published on 11 June show that merchandise trade fell by 5% in the first quarter of the year and …
In 2019 and the early months of 2020, global trade faced two major albeit very different shocks, namely the United States-China trade war and the cascading response of the countries around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the former situation involved a pair of centrally-placed trading partners introducing tariffs …
As countries adopt radical measures to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, international trade and transport systems are under tremendous stress. Early evidence shows that international trade is collapsing, threatening access to goods and critical supplies. In response, a new UNCTAD policy brief outlines a ten-point action plan to help …
The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the link between zoonotic diseases – those transmitted from animals to humans – and wildlife markets into sharp focus. An online survey conducted by GlobeScan in March among 5,000 participants from Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam found that 82 per …
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought considerable attention to trade in medical products, and specifically trade in products for prevention, testing and treatment.
As governments and businesses grapple with the effects of COVID-19, other global challenges remain. Once the immediate crisis abates, countries must intensify environmental action to tackle climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, even while restarting their economies. Trade policy has a vital role to play. This briefing paper by the …
Many regional trade agreements (RTAs) contain chapters and articles that are environmentally specific. But Parties can elect to more broadly incorporate environmental objectives in their RTAs to promote their environmental concerns in such agreements. This report investigates in what ways RTAs could incorporate environmental objectives in chapters and articles related …
It is claimed that the world food supplies are more stable than the domestic supplies, and therefore free trade should achieve a higher degree of stability in prices and consumption than autarkic policies. The risk sharing implicit in such an argument, has, however never been formally examined. In this paper, …
Bamboo and bamboo products hold significant potential to contribute to the sustainable development of Ethiopia, specifically for building green economy. Ethiopia is the primary grower of bamboo in Africa but still far from effective and efficient use of these resources. This strategy and action plan adopted by the EFCCC ( …
