The ARTNeT community is deeply saddened by the too early passing of Dr. Saman Kelegama, Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies, prominent Sri Lankan economist, policy advisor and a founding member of ARTNeT. Saman left us on 23 June 2017 in Bangkok, at the age of 58. 

Saman was born and grew up in Colombo, completed his masters degree (1983) in Mathematics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India, M.Sc (1985) and D.Phil (1990) in Economics at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, UK. He had worked at IPS since 1990, and led it as Executive Director since 1995. He also served on numerous government commissions and advisory boards, which included contributing to the last Presidential Tax Commission in Sri Lanka. He was also a member of the editorial boards of various journals, including Asia Pacific Development Journal from ESCAP, and he regularly contributed to ESCAP and ARTNeT dialogues and analytical work. Saman has always been a passionate supporter of ARTNeT since its establishment in late 2004.

The ARTNeT community will greatly miss his guidance, humility and contributions. Our deepest condolences to Saman's family and IPS staff.

You can find out more Saman's legacy with IPS here and here. 

The objective of a free trade agreement (FTA) is not to bring about a balance in trade, but to work out a ‘win-win’ situation for both producers and consumers in FTA member countries. In doing so, there can be instances where the trade deficit increases for one partner. For instance, the inflow of necessary consumer goods, machinery and spare parts for industrial activity, and intermediate goods like textiles and oil, to one trading partner can be huge while the supply capacity of the same trading nation may be limited and cannot immediately increase to expand its exports to match the import flow.

This policy brief was submitted prior to Saman Kelegama passing and was prepared for publication posthumously. For the full policy brief please visit here. 

This paper by Neha Mishra, Melbourne Law School, highlights the following observations and findings on the delicate and complex relationship between international trade and the Internet: 1) Recent PTAs such as the TPP and Japan – Mongolia FTA contain legal provisions on cybersecurity, data protection, data localisation, consumer protection, net neutrality, spam control, and protection of online intellectual property, intended to facilitate electronic commerce and enable cross-border data flows. 2) International trade law does not contain adequate tools to address all aspects of Internet data flows. 3) Internet openness, security and trust are fundamental to the governance of Internet data flows. 4) International trade institutions should explore both formal and informal means to engage with the Internet policy community in course of dialogues and/or trade negotiations within WTO as well as bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements, and in multistakeholder platforms such as the Internet Governance Forum.

For the full paper please visit here. 

ARTNeT has been created as an open regional network comprising leading trade and development research institutions and think tanks across the Asia-Pacific region. We aim to increase the quality and the amount of relevant trade research in the region by more effectively harnessing the research capacity already available and developing additional capabilities. The solid research findings are used as evidence for better informed policymaking in the developing countries in need to more effectively use trade as a means of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

To assist in dissemination of its work, ARTNeT currently relies on using three social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as the official website and monthly newsletter. In order to improve its service to the institutional members and partners, ARTNeT Secretariat is conducting this short survey to collect users’ opinions and feedback.

Your opinion is valuable to us – we want to make sure that this network continues meeting your needs. You are encouraged to provide further comments and ideas in the text fields.

The results of the survey will be reflected in our future media operational strategies soon. Please answer the survey here. The survey will be open for 30 days.

ARTNeT and ESCAP secretariats in collaboration with the International Institute for Trade Development (ITD) organized a training course on "E-Commerce and Emerging Digital Trade Agenda" from 15 to 16 June 2017 in Bangkok. The training course brought together more than 30 participants from Bhutan, Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam. Guest speakers were recruited from Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Thailand e-commerce Association and Nextrade.

The workshop contributed towards development of foundational level competencies on: (1) form an understanding of the importance of e-commerce within the Inclusive Trade and Digital Economy context; (2) create familiarisation of emerging future trade enabling agendas including new terms, reference points; (3) formulate country level agenda to promote e-Commerce for SMEs and start-ups; and (4) perform preliminary country level assessment of e-Trade readiness. 

For the workshop presentations please visit here. For the event photos please visit here.

The regional dialogue for the Development Account ninth tranche project "Enhancing the Contribution of Preferential Trade Agreements to Inclusive and Equitable Trade" held from 21 to 22 June 2017 in Bangkok. The dialogue brought together over 30 experts to review the contemporary thinking and evidence on the linkages between trade policies, particularly preferential trade agreements, and inclusive outcomes. Furthermore, the event provided an opportunity to share and discuss experiences and lessons learnt by the selected pilot countries for the project in Asia-Pacific in their efforts to liberalize trade and investment, especially through the preferential trade agreements. The event included participants from the five pilot countries: Bangladesh, Mongolia, Myanmar, Islamic Republic of Iran, and Viet Nam, as well as experts from partner institutions and universities across the Asia-Pacific region, including ARTNeT partner ADBI, members BFTI, CPD, SANEM, CUTS International, IKMAS-UKM, SAWTEE, IPS and FTU. 

For the event presentations please visit here. For the event photos please visit here.

Conducted by the ESCAP and ARTNeT Secretariat, the purpose of the survey was to collect information regarding the public perception on how preferential trade agreements might affect inclusive and equitable trade.

The survey was open from 19 May to 16 June for 4 weeks, circulated among ARTNeT institutional members and partners and received 126 responses. For the general attitude towards PTAs, we have respondents agreed on PTAs are good to their economy, and PTA is a good economic policy. Respondents have different opinions on the engagement of their economy in the PTAs. However, 72% of respondents think PTAs can have a significant effect on inclusive and equitable trade.

For the full presentation and report of the survey please visit here (session 2).

Perceptions is an international, refereed journal of international affairs with a wide-ranging reader portfolio including academia, students, policy makers, NGO members, diplomatic corps, journalists, managers and investors. The journal is published by the Strategic Research Center (SAM) of Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established fifty years ago. Enduring the political, economic, ideological and sociological challenges of the second half of the twentieth century, ASEAN, the oldest modern regional organization in Southeast Asia and broader East Asia, successfully witnessed the turn of the twenty-first century. At 50, ASEAN appears to be a formidable alternative to dominant regional institutional integration experiences. Relatedly, the scholarship on ASEAN constitutes a critical alternative to the mainstream International Relations (IR) literature. This special issue on ASEAN aims to review and assess the theoretical and methodological contributions ASEAN offers to academic study.

Deadline is 24 August. For the submission details please visit here. 

This is a training tool developed by our partner IDRC. The material includes four parts: planning your policy brief, policy brief template, designing the brief and checking your work.

You can access the material here. You can also check ARTNeT policy brief series here. 

This book, co-edited by Prabir De, RIS and Ajitava Raychaudhuri, Department of Economics, Jadavpur University, both institutional members of ARTNeT, comprehensively investigates the challenges to Myanmar’s access to the global market. Myanmar is a late entrant in the global trade and investment scenario after years of isolation. However, it has large untapped potentials for trade and investment in minerals, agro and forest based industries, other labour intensive industries, services like tourism, IT, etc. Different chapters of the book explore the implication of democratic transition of Myanmar, the progress of Myanmar’s industry and infrastructure, its international linkages and feasible options for integrating more in regional economic groups and also analyses how far Myanmar could exploit the global value chain. Although a number of reports have discussed sector specific prospects of Myanmar, this book is an authoritative work on these aspects for policy planners, academicians, researchers as well as potential investors.

For more information please visit here. 

The Chinese Government has embarked on a new strategy, known as “One Belt, One Road” or OBOR. This paper by Abdul Rahman Embong, Hans-Dieter Evers and Rashila Ramli from our member Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, (IKMAS) Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia concentrates on the maritime part of this development policy, which entails heavy infrastructure investments in ports and railroads, but also property developments like satellite cities or condominiums, offered for sale mainly to Chinese citizens. There will be obvious commercial benefits to economies along the Southern Silk Road, but also geo political effects like increasing political dependency due to Chinese capital investments and acquisition of property rights in ports and condominiums. Regarding these developments, a Malaysian maritime policy is called for to match OBOR and the Indonesian Maritime Fulcrum, as well as ASEAN integration.

For the full paper please visit here. 

The growing digitalisation of manufacturing products is creating new challenges for the developing and the least developed countries (LDCs). This paper issued by our member Centre for WTO Studies, New Delhi and written by Rashmi Banga, the Commonwealth Secretariat, estimates the size of the digital economy to be around $22.5 trillion, which is an underestimate, as it does not include the size of the fast growing remote additive manufacturing market (RAM) or 3-D printing market. The paper shows that the gains of this digitalisation is heavily biased towards a few developed countries, while developing and LDCs are fast losing their trade competitiveness, especially in the manufacturing sector which generates maximum employment. Given the low internet penetration rates and subsequently low e-commerce penetration rates, these countries are unable to compete with the developed countries, even in their own domestic markets.

For the full paper please visit here. 

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBMA), 2003 sets fiscal rules that seek to foster fiscal discipline on the Central Government and achieving a balanced budget with effective revenue management. The Act sets targets and suggests means of reducing fiscal and revenue deficits. It has however, had limited success. The targets that were to be achieved by 2008-09 were relaxed because of financial crisis of 2008. However, strict implementation of FRBMA has been a matter of concern. This paper by Charan Singh, Devi Prasad, K.K. Sharma and Shivakumara Reddy K from our member Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) notes that there is an urgent requirement for greater transparency in budget preparation, making the medium-term framework more binding and greater capacity building on the part of government to promote budgetary and debt management institutions.

For the full paper please visit here. 

Mr. Paul Baker, Chief Executive and founder of International Economics Consulting Ltd, has joined ARTNeT Research Programme Advisors Team. Mr. Baker brings a rich experience and expertise in provision of advisory services related to data analytics, market intelligence, trade and global production networks. He started his career as economist-statistician for the European Commission’s Monetary and Policy Convergence Division in Luxembourg, before heading the economic and statistics macro-economic surveillance of Latin America for the European Commission. He has since acquired over 25 years’ experience in over 60 countries, holding mission chief roles with the World Bank, UNCTAD, DFID, EU and International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO, and advisory roles for governments and private clients.

We look forward to working with Mr. Baker in service to ARTNeT membership.

GBS Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University (Link)

Demand for seafood exports in Sri Lanka: Has Sri Lanka gained competitiveness after civil war

Incidence of value added taxation on inequality: Evidence from Sri Lanka

Modelling the inbound tourism demand in Sri Lanka

Revisiting the debt-growth nexus: Empirical evidence from Sri Lanka

Centre of Policy Dialogue (CPD)

Will the least developed countries be left behind?

Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh (PRI)

Looking for trade policy directions in the FY18 Budget

Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP): Progress and Challenges

Evaluation of Recent Development of the AIIB: The 2nd Annual Meeting of the AIIB Held in Korea and its Implications

The Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore (ISAS-NUS) 

Three Years of Narendra Modi’s Government – An Assessment on the Economic Front

Chinese Projects in South Asia under the Belt and Road Initiative: Disrupted by Debt?

China’s Vision of Blue Partnership: Convergence with India’s Blue Economy Initiative?

Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS)

ASEANFocus

Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS)

The Rise of Collaborative Economy in the Philippines

Scoping Study on Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens in the Philippine Food Manufacturing Industry

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The ARTNeT Secretariat welcomes submissions of policy briefs, working papers, book reports, research reports, and book reviews by ARTNeT members, partners and collaborators. For any submission to be considered, the editorial 'Guidelines for Submissions to the ARTNeT Working Papers Series' must be adhered to.

If you are an ARTNeT member, partner or collaborator and would like to publicise your publications, research or events in the next newsletter, please e-mail us at artnetontrade@un.org.