An Analysis of India’s Trade Flow with BIMSTEC nations- A Gravity Model Approach

At present, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) represent 22 percent of the global population and carries immense economic promise, with a combined GDP worth $ 3.5 trillion (2018). BIMSTEC have India as the largest economy of the group followed by Bangladesh, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and Bhutan. The paper tries to examine the impact of determinants of trade, on trading pattern of India with the BIMSTEC nations, by employing an augmented gravity model on panel data, since its formation for the period of 22 years i.e., from 1997-2018. The paper tries to examine the India’s trade flow within BIMSTEC trading bloc by implying augmented gravity model followed by Egger (2000,2002), Baltagi et al. (2003) and Serlenga and Shin (2007). Several checks have been performed to imply the presence of serial correlation, heteroscedasticity and contemporaneous correlation in the panels. Many other preliminary tests have also been performed to know the crosssectional dependency, stationarity, panel co-integration and normality of variables. The simple panel OLS estimation technique has been used conduct Regression. The study finds out that Heckscher-Ohlin- Samuelson theorem explain the India’s pattern of trade with the bloc. The variables GDP, per capita GDP, Trade GDP ratio, common border and belonging to BIMSTEC has positive impact on the trade between the India and country j. While tax and distance are negatively correlated with total trade of the nations as per our expectations.

Marketing the 1970 Agreement

The basic feature of the 1970 Agreement between the EEC and Spain, Chapter 6 explains, was the negotiated asymmetry in favour of Spain. Franco’s governments succeeded in securing irreversible access to the Common Market, with the most favourable terms possible for a non-EEC country. This was despite the increasing political costs for the Six/Nine and Madrid not having to pay the price of political evolution. The Spanish administration accepted that the Franco regime should evolve but only if the speed and the destination were left up to Madrid. The 1970 Agreement represented a shield granted by the Six in favour of Franco Spain. The Six and the EEC Council and Commission dealt with a relatively weak partner. Meanwhile, Spain faced a set of countries that together formed an omnipotent trading bloc and embodied the highest democratic values. Despite this, Franco’s negotiators succeeded in imposing the essential aspects of their objectives.

Critical Success Factors for Data Governance of Cross-border e-Trade Data Among ASEAN Member States

Global trading partners continue to adopt increasingly more multilateral and regional trade agreements amidst an overwhelmingly paperless and digital landscape. This can create useful trade alliances and increased efficiencies of digitization, but world trade is still plagued by the near absence of a uniform, harmonised customs and clearance protocol systems which trading partners accept and adhere to. Historically, customs forms and documentation requirements all differ from one nation to the next, and from one trading bloc to another. Un-uniformity in this area thwarts swift and cost-saving exchange of goods. The EU, North America and the northern Asian nations of Japan, China and South Korea have created various constructs to rectify digital trade dissonance. Southeast Asia famously began construction of the ASW (ASEAN Single Window), a single portal protocol intended to harmonise digital trading throughout the process from origin to destination, and its various successes and continuing challenges will be explored in this article. This research article focuses on and explores critical success factors for better governance of cross-border trade in the ASEAN region by conducting a systematic literature review of data governance related to electronic data exchanges by cross-border trading partners. This study uses a realistic approach while attempting to provide a clear view of the overarching picture of the trade world’s digital exchange challenges.

The Price of Victory

Post-war Labour and Conservative governments saw the UK’s global interests as lying primarily with the United States and the Commonwealth. They took no part in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community or in the proposed European Defence Community, though, when the EDC idea foundered, Prime Minister Anthony Eden played a prominent role in promoting European defence, just as Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had done in fostering the establishment of NATO. The British sent only an observer to the Messina Conference (1956) that negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Community (EEC). The UK set up its own trading bloc (EFTA) but it could not compete politically or economically with the EEC and, in 1961, the government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan applied for EEC membership, despite the opposition of France’s President de Gaulle.

Impacts of regional integration and maritime transport on trade: with special reference to RCEP

Purpose The proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will become a large trade agreement in Asia, which has brought together the ten members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five of the neighbors’ countries. Under the trend of globalization, the progress of the transportation industry and regional integration will increase the volume of trade, therefore maritime performance is intrinsically linked to trade. In fact, few studies have examined regional integration in the context of seaborne. This paper aims to use the cluster analysis and Poisson quasi-maximum likelihood (PQML) gravity model to investigate the trading bloc phenomenon and relation between trade and marine transportation. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, hierarchical clustering analysis and tree diagrams are used to identify functional areas characterized by bilateral trade intensity and bilateral liner shipping connectivity indices. Regional reorganizations that have occurred within Asian countries were studied. This study illustrates that these trading blocs have a positive impact on trade when maritime transport, production and trading networks have developed between regions. A gravity model was constructed using worldwide trade data for 2007, 2010 and 2015. The study considered free trade agreement (FTA)/common market (CM) of EU, RCEP and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as regional dummies and designed a real trade bloc induction variable. In addition, the study did not use the commonly adopted ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation but used the PQML method to estimate the gravity equation to overcome the problem of a large number of zero trade observations. Preliminary results show that regional integration cannot guarantee the establishment of intraregional trade but depends on the stage of economic development and regional industrial characteristics. Findings The major findings are summarized as follows. Both liner shipping connectivity and logistics performance have significant advantages with positive coefficients in each regression results. The creation of intraregional trade is not guaranteed, depending on the characteristics of the trade and the stage of economic development of the region. For RCEP, the effect created by intra-regional trade is better than the EU. Instead, the “nominal” intra-RCEP trade was significantly below the “real” trading blocs. For RCEP, the effect created by intra-regional trade is better than that of the EU. Instead, “nominal” intra-RCEP trade is much lower than “real” trading blocs. The real trading bloc between East Asia and Taiwan clearly exists, and the bloc phenomenon is becoming more and more significant. This result shows that Taiwan’s trade flow with East Asia is higher than the normal level relationship implied by its corresponding economic and geographical conditions. Originality/value This paper focuses on new empirical work done for this study is on the potential impact on trade. Earlier studies that have discussed and/or provided estimates of the benefits to the RCEP plan from improved transport and supply chain connectivity are cited. Marine transportation performance inherently links to economies of commerce. Few studies have examined regional integration in the context of maritime transportation, which reflects the lack of a mix of trade economists and maritime logistics research in the existing literature. This paper attempts to investigate the trading bloc phenomenon formed by regional integration (such as RCEP) and the relation between trade and marine transportation. With the official entry into force of the RCEP in 2020, it will promote increased trade and demand for logistics and maritime transport services in East Asia.

Impact of Regional Trade Agreements on India’s Trade Potential: The Case of SAARC and APTA

In view of the growing importance of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) in the era of trade liberalization, we examine the impact of two significant RTAs of India, SAARC trading bloc and APTA, on its trade potential. We employ panel data regression on an augmented gravity model using data over the period 1991-2016 for 23 Asian countries which are India’s trading partners. In order to capture the impact of explanatory variables, the study uses fixed effects estimation and Hausman Taylor estimation. Our results show that conventional gravity variables such as GDP of the trading partners and liberal trade policies are significant determinants of India’s trade. The results for variables of interest, APTA and SAPTA (for SAARC) export/import creation indicate that both the trading bloc are facilitating India’s trade flow. The ‘age’ variable for SAARC trading bloc show that India’s imports from SAARC nations has significantly reduced with the passage of time and India’s exports to APTA trading bloc is more or less stagnant since the last decade. While China and Korea are dominating intra-APTA exports but India’s intra-SAARC exports are gaining more strength with passage of time.

The Gravity Model Approach: An Application on the Eco Was Trading Bloc

This study aims to examine bilateral trade flows across ECOWAS-15 nations with the use of a panel and cross section for the period of 1981-2013. The methodology carried out to achieve this objective involves the use of various techniques of estimation for the gravity model (Static and dynamic). More specifically, this study aims to investigate the formational impact of regional trade integration agreements on trade flows within a group of countries using the same currencies and ECOWAS at large. The main use of regional variables into gravity models is intended to determine whether RTAs lead to trade creation, or diversion. The results show the presence of a strong relationship among the factors of both RIAs and trade flows.