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Trade Development News
- Feb 18
- 1 min
Can Asean recover this year?
Prior to the pandemic, Southeast Asia had made huge advancements and was forecasted to be the fourth biggest economy by the year 2030. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in economic devastation for Asean, arguably posing the greatest challenge since the region’s formation. However, there are positive signs that Asean can make an economic recovery in 2021. “All Asean nations are involved in the Asean Single Window Live Operation, where trade and cargo flows can
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Trade Development News
- Feb 17
- 3 min
New WTO chief's pile of problems
The coronavirus pandemic, log-jammed trade talks and a long-delayed meeting of member states are just a few of the crises awaiting Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as she takes the helm of the World Trade Organization next month. The WTO needs a kiss of life -- and fast -- and the first female and first African director-general of the global trade body will have to hit the ground running as she takes on the job in the middle of a major global recession. Here are the four main challenges t
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Trade Development News
- Feb 11
- 1 min
UNCTAD Latest Global Trade Update Indicates Strong Recovery in China & East Asia
UNCTAD has published its latest Global Trade Update. The good news is that world trade continued its recovery from the pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2020, and most sectors saw positive growth. The less good news is that although trade in goods rebounded by 8%, services stagnated. And while goods exports from East Asian economies grew by about 12% in Q4 (year-over-year), negative trends continued for goods exported from most other regions. The report also highlights persis
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Trade Development News
- Feb 9
- 3 min
Covid-19, e-commerce fuel illicit trade in Asean: EU-Asean Business Council
SMUGGLED wildlife, cigarettes, counterfeit medicines, substandard personal protective equipment (PPE), and even children's toys that bypass safety checks are among the worrisome goods traded in South-east Asia's illicit markets. The region's counterfeit goods market, excluding fraudulent medicines, is worth around US$35.9 billion annually, according to a 2019 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). It also costs governments further billions in tax reve
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Trade Development News
- Feb 8
- 1 min
World Trade Organization looks set to have its first Female & First African leader
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Set to Become W.T.O.’s First Female Leader Her path was cleared after Yoo Myung-hee, the South Korean trade minister, announced she was withdrawing from consideration to head the World Trade Organization. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, an economist and former finance minister of Nigeria, appears set to become the next director general of the World Trade Organization, with the Biden administration announcing its “strong support” for her candidacy on Friday. She would
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Trade Development News
- Jan 28
- 5 min
WOMEN IN TRADE – A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
By Barbara Grunewald OCO Global; On 20 January 2021, history was written when Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female Vice President of the United States of America. It was a historic and inspiring moment, and there is no better time than now to talk about gender equality and women’s empowerment. It was exactly 5 years ago, in January 2016, that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force, with SDG 5 dedicated to gender equality and the ach
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Trade Development News
- Jan 27
- 2 min
UNCTAD: Global FDI fell 42% in 2020 - New Investment Trends Monitor Released
UNCTAD says uncertainty about the COVID-19 pandemic’s evolution and the global investment policy environment will continue to affect FDI flows in 2021. For developing countries, the prospects for 2021 are a major concern. Global foreign direct investment (FDI) collapsed in 2020, falling 42% from $1.5 trillion in 2019 to an estimated $859 billion, according to an UNCTAD Investment Trends Monitor published on 24 January.
Such a low level was last seen in the 1990s and is more t
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Trade Development News
- Jan 22
- 3 min
Life after COVID: Top 5 tips for Trade Development Agencies
Article by Paul Grossman, Director, US, OCO Global: It was a year ago this month that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency. Over the past year, business practices have changed forever, and none more so than those used for international trade. As we look forward to a post-COVID world, governmental agencies devoted to the promotion of international trade should consider the following: “Some exporters are more equal than
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Trade Development News
- Jan 21
- 3 min
OCO Global & KW Group announce Asia FDI, Trade & Investment partnership based in Malaysia
Leading specialist trade and investment advisory firm OCO Global is further expanding its presence across Asia with the appointment of KW Group, as Associate Regional Partner based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The new partnership will enhance OCO Global’s presence across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, supporting existing operations in China, South Korea and Japan, while boosting OCO Global’s footprint across Asia Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand. Joachim Arnold, Ch
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Trade Development News
- Jan 21
- 2 min
China FDI rose to record level in 2020 despite coronavirus, fastest growth rate in five years
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose 4.5 per cent from 2019 to US$144.37 billion last year Investment from the Netherlands and Britain increased by 47.6 per cent and 30.7 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose to a record high in 2020 by posing the fastest growth rate in five years despite the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
FDI in US dollar terms – excluding financial sectors such as banking, sec
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Trade Development News
- Jan 21
- 1 min
Cambodia To Implement Data Automation Between Tax & Customs Authorities
System will strengthen tax and customs cooperation, enabling instantly the sharing and exchange of data and information, including corporate tax registration, corporate import and export declaration documents, sales and purchase records, as well as other related documents. The introduction of the data automation system represents Cambodia’s optimisation of new technology to strengthen inter-institutional cooperation. Under the automated exchange system, the two tax authoritie
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Trade Development News
- Jan 15
- 3 min
OFFICIAL CHINA TRADE DATA REPORT: Global Trade in 2020 Rebounded After Spring Slump
As the world seeks to recover from the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic, trade data suggests it’s more dependent than ever on the Chinese export engine - Latest December China Trade Data insights from our partners at Trade Data Monitor, authored by Chief Economist, John W Miller - For a copy of December's trade data for China and other countries email: andrewk@kwconfex.com China’s full-year numbers show how global trade was almost crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic during
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Trade Development News
- Jan 14
- 2 min
ASEAN ahead of EU & US as China's largest trading partner in 2020
ASEAN countries have jumped to be the number one trading bloc with China in 2020, with the trade volumes hitting 4.74 trillion yuan ($731.9 billion), a 7 percent growth year-on-year, Chinese Customs spokesman Li Kuiwen told a press conference on Thursday, making ASEAN China's largest trading partner for the first time and making China ASEAN's largest trading partner for 12 years in a row. With the demonstration the huge potential and strong resilience of China-ASEAN cooperati
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Trade Development News
- Jan 12
- 2 min
Balancing Facilitation & Control To Combat Illicit Trade In Free Trade Zones
A 2020 update of the ICC BASCAP report assessing the environment and highlighting trends in counterfeiting and other forms of illicit trade facilitated within free trade zones. What’s at risk? Free Trade Zones (FTZs) provide significant opportunities for legitimate business and play a critical role in global trade as well as economic growth for the host nation. However, our updated research has continued to confirm that insufficient oversight remains a major enabler of illic
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Trade Development News
- Jan 8
- 2 min
DIGITAL TRADE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC: 8 ISSUES FOR 2021 AND BEYOND
The Asian Trade Centre, with generous support from the Hinrich Foundation, has launched a series of papers, Asia in the Digital Economy, to more carefully examine new and emerging issues in digital trade in 2021. Since the public launch of the World Wide Web in 1995, trade has increasingly gone digital. While firms are innovating at a rapid clip to design, develop and deploy digitally-enabled goods and services, governments have struggled to keep up. For the first decades af
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Trade Development News
- Jan 8
- 2 min
The future of FDI: drivers and directions to 2030
UNCTAD's James Zhan identifies the factors that will shape the coming decade in FDI, published by FDI Intelligence Over the past two decades, global value chains witnessed one of rapid growth followed by one of stagnation. The decade to 2030 is likely to be one of transformation for global value chains (GVCs), reshaping the global trade and investment landscape. The pandemic has caused a treble shock of supply, demand and policy. It has a severe impact on FDI and GVCs. I woul
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Trade Development News
- Dec 31, 2020
- 2 min
FDI Trends & Outlook In Asia & The Pacific 2020/2021, UNESCAP
The investment landscape in Asia and the Pacific has become increasingly uncertain and tied to the unfolding of current global and regional political economic risks, such as increased trade tensions, the retreat of multilateralism, and health risks resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, these risks have disrupted global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to, from and within Asia and the Pacific. HIGHLIGHTS • Globally, both FDI inflows and outflows started to recov
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Trade Development News
- Dec 31, 2020
- 2 min
Mapping TradeTech: Trade in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Insight Report by World Economic Forum on how TradeTech is fundamental to harnessing the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good. Lead Authors: Ziyang Fan & Jimena Sotelo Mapping TradeTech: Trade in the Fourth Industrial Revolution was developed in cooperation with more than 50 global industry experts, policy-makers, academics and civil society leaders. It provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of emerging technologies on the global
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Trade Development News
- Dec 29, 2020
- 3 min
Top five trends in FDI to look out for in 2021
Foreign direct investment has been hard hit in 2020, with levels plummeting by 40–50%. Investment Monitor has identified five key trends to keep an eye on in 2021. 1. FDI will continue to struggle in 2021 The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated in June 2020 that it is expecting FDI volumes to decline by 5–10% in 2021. Investment will be highly dependent on Covid-19 recovery. The news in December 2020 of new nodes of the virus has dampened hopes that progres
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