The training course on “Environmental Goods and Services Trade Negotiations” organized by ARTNeT in collaboration with the International Institute for Trade and Development (ITD) and the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand. There were over 30 participants including officials and stakeholders from Thailand, Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Nepal, Bhutan and Timor-Leste. Resource persons included experts from WTO, ESCAP and also ARTNeT partners.

The training has increased participants' awareness of various factors involved in trade of environmental goods and services. Attention was given to aspects of approaches to liberalization of trade in environmental goods and services, keeping in mind the needs of developing countries and their aspirations toward sustainable development. 

For the presentations please visit here.

SANEM, associated with ARTNeT since 2012, has successfully organized its 2nd Annual Economists’ Conference 2017 on “Managing Growth for Social inclusion” on February 18-19, 2017 at BRAC Centre Inn, Mohakhali, Dhaka.

The Inaugural Session was marked by two keynote speeches by Dr. Siddiqur Rahman Osmani, Professor, Developmental Economics, University of Ulster, UK and Professor David Hulme, Development Studies, University of Manchester, UK and CEO, Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) Research Center, University of Manchester, UK. The two-day conference had 13 sessions in total, 8 sessions on Day 1 and 5 sessions on Day 2. In total, 26 research papers were presented in this conference.

To know more about the conference please visit offical website here and Thinking Aloud. 

The ESCAP, in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), is organizing the Asia-Pacific Conference: Taking Collective Action to Accelerate Transformation of Official Statistics for Agenda 2030 in Bangkok from 27 to 28 March 2017. The Conference will bring together a broad range of national, regional and global stakeholder institutions to engender reflections and bring forward recommendations on how collective efforts to enhance data and statistics can best support national SDG implementation in Asia-Pacific member States.

For more information and concept note please visit here. 

The Punjab Economic Forum will be hosted by the Punjab Economic Research Institute, Planning and Development Department, Government of Punjab in collaboration with the Urban Unit. The goal of the forum is to engage stakeholders in a wide-ranging dialogue and discussion on growth and development priorities of the provincial government and its future strategic direction. It is a two-day event comprising of six technical sessions beside inaugural and concluding session.

The main theme/slogan of the Forum is "Institutions for Growth and
Equity". The session-themes are as follows:
   1.   Inclusive and sustainable economic growth
   2.   Natural Endowments and its management
   3.   Human and skill development
   4.   Financing of public goods and PPP
   5.   Industrial and Urban Development
   6.   China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

For each of the six technical sessions we would encourage speakers and thought leaders to come forward and share the international best practices and how best can those be contextualized. It would be my/our pleasure to invite you to participate towards our common cause of international development.

ETSG 2017 is being hosted by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute and the University of Florence (Italy). ETSG conferences are open to any researcher with an interest in international trade issues. Everyone can submit a paper for presentation. Deadline for submission is 28 April.

For the conference information, news, submission details and prize please visit here.  

The WTI Summer Academy covers cutting-edge issues in investment and trade law and policy. It is designed for private and public sector and civil society professionals as well as higher-education students. In lectures, discussions and case studies, renowned experts will teach you how to blend the policy aspects of trade and investment with thorough legal interpretation and economic analysis. Becoming a part of the WTI community, you will establish valuable contacts with fellow-minded professionals and lecturers.

For more information, admission and programme please visit here. 

The World Trade Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland and the Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, India are pleased to announce the launch of the 4 th WTI – CWS Joint Academy on International Trade Law and Policy ("Joint Academy"), from 5-30 June 2017 at New Delhi. The Joint Academy aims to provide law students and legal professionals in India a rare opportunity to deepen their knowledge on aspects of International Trade Law and Policy. Taught by distinguished academics and practitioners from India and abroad, the Joint Academy will equip participants with theoretical and practical insights into various issues relating to international trade law. The application deadline is 31 March 2017.

For programmes and application detail please visit here. 

Our partner ADBI is looking for original research papers in the field of theoretical, empirical and experimental economic and business issues. The ADBI joins Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) with special sessions on financial inclusion and regulation, the middle-income trap and industrial structure upgrading that broaden the scope of the research agenda. The submission deadline is 15 March 2017.

For more details please visit here.

The ADBI, in cooperation with World Economy, invites submissions of unpublished papers looking at Globalization and the Environment in Asia. Both theoretical and empirical research papers with policy orientations are welcome provided that findings, conclusions, and policy recommendations are based on solid evidence and analysis. Manuscripts can focus on Asia as a whole, a group of countries, or individual economies. The submission deadline is 1 August 2017.

For the submission detail please visit here. 

The Policy Support Unit (PSU), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) provides professional and tailor-made research, analysis and evidence-based policy suggestions to improve the quality of APEC’s 21 member economies’ deliberations and decisions. An opportunity now exists for a highly meticulous, motivated and analytical Researcher with superior quantitative skills to contribute to the APEC policy process. Application deadline: 10 March 2017. 

For the application detail please visit here. 

Center for Industry, SME and Business Competition Studies, University of Trisakti is happy to introduce you a new international journal: International Journal of Small and Medium Enterprises and Business Sustainability. As a quarterly journal, the next issue, Volume 2, Number 2, will come out in March 2017. And if you have papers ready to publish, please feel free to submit the manuscripts to us through: ttambunan56@yahoo.com. Your contributions in the form of submitting your papers would help us much in that process and, hence, the continuity of the journal.

You can assess the journal here. 

The rise of Asia represents a seminal turning point in history. Indeed, the next age of globalization could ultimately belong to Asia, reflected by a significant transfer of economic power. As a consequence of Asia’s rise on the global economic map, it has necessitated greater interconnection within, and with, the outside
world. This development of interconnection is taking place between nations as well as across regions and sub-regions in Asia. We are witnessing emerging corridors and several regional integration initiatives aimed at linking economic agents within a country or across regions by providing connection between economic nodes or hubs where economic resources and actors are concentrated. The objectives of such proposals are to strengthen regional integration and inclusive growth by bringing in lagging regions into the growth process. The book under review is a wonderful tribute to Dr M Rahmatullah who relentlessly championed the cause of multimodal connectivity in South Asia, and also seamless movement of goods across all of Asia. His seminal contributions had put connectivity as central to economic prosperity and regional economic integration in the region. The editors De and Rahman have done a remarkable job by bringing together eminent experts contributing a wide range of issues relating to regional integration.

Reviewed by Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, Research Associate at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
(NUS), Singapore. 

For the full review please visit here. 

ESCAP is pleased to inform you that the ESCAP Statistical Database has been updated with the latest data available in the following areas:

1. GDP
2. Government fiscal balance
3. Mobile phone and Internet subscriptions
4. Slum population
5. Some revised poverty data

Due to browser compatibility issues, we would recommend you to view the database in Firefox and Chrome browsers.

You can access to the database here. 

In the Philippines, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) produces a substantial set of socioeconomic statistics, including the gross domestic product and other measures of economic performance, income poverty statistics, agricultural statistics, and labor and employment statistics. Other government agencies produce their own sectoral statistics. For example, the Philippine National Police generates statistics on (reported) crime, the Department of Education releases statistics on the performance of the basic education sector, and the Department of Health produces statistics on various communicable and noncommunicable diseases. The PSA and all other statistics producers in government are part of the Philippine Statistical System (PSS). Official (or government) statistics produced by the PSS are sourced either from primary data collections (such as censuses, sample surveys, administrative reporting systems) or compilations of secondary data. The PSS does not conduct its work in isolation. International standards on producing statistics are discussed and developed among governments and international bodies, especially in conjunction with the United Nations Statistics Division and other international compilers of data, to enable the generation of comparable statistics across countries.

This Policy Note from PIDS discusses international and local assessments of official statistics in the country. It also provides suggestions on how to improve the enabling environment of the PSA and the country’s statistical system.

The issue of rising income inequality has now become an important topic of public discussion and academic discourse in developed and developing countries. There is now sufficient empirical evidence available to indicate that the situation is getting worse. The economic crisis stemming from the global financial crisis (GFC), now a decade on, has affected the lives of millions of working men and women and still continues to do so.

The rise of economic nationalism that we are witnessing in developed countries has some of its roots in the unequal gains accruing to high and low income groups (e.g. lower skilled workers) from the sluggish economic recovery. Given that the crisis was global in scope its after effects can be felt in almost every country, including Bangladesh. It threatens to undo the global economic order that has evolved over the Second World War.

For the full article from PRI please visit here. 

ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS)

Trump and Brexit: Some Lessons for Southeast Asia

Can the Decline of Batam’s Shipbuilding Industry be Reversed?

The Future of Trade Diplomacy in East Asia

ASEANFocus

Korea Institute for Internaional Economic Policy (KIEP)

The Beginning of the China-led New Financial Order and Korea's Countermeasures

Korea-China FTA in Its First Year and Effectuation

The UK's Fintech Industry Support Policies and its Implications

Applying Competition Policy to Optimize International Trade Rules

A Case for Industrial Development Strategy in Myanmar

Preferential Trade Agreements of China, Japan and Korea: Towards Deeper Integration

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

Pakistan at Davos: World Economic Forum 2017

Will Demonetisation Shrink the Informal Economy?

Has Demonetisation Impaired Policy Credibility?

The Indian Budget—2017-18

India Budget 2017: Fighting High Public Debt

The ESCAP in collaboration with ARTNeT has released an online course focusing on Trade and SDGs. The access to the course is free to the public and the content is chosen to provide an accessible learning on the transition from ‪MDGs‬ to SDGs, type process and rationale behind opting for a universal goal, and introduces the main linkages between trade and the SDGs. The three modules now form a basic level course and will be followed by more advanced and tailored courses to respond to capacity building needs in this substantive area.

These three modules can be accessed from:

Module 1 / Module 2 / Module 3

You have to register online and then you are ready to go. This will enable you to receive a certificate after finishing each module.

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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.