Potential of palm oil-based agro-diesel in Butembo region in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Oil dependence is one of the major global energy problems exacerbating impoverishment in developing countries and especially in rural areas. This study aims to highlight the observation of this dependence for the Butembo region and envisages measures to reduce it by developing a potentially profitable sector, a hapax opportunity for the economic development of the peasantry. It deals with the use of a non-rare energy, palm oil as an alternative to diesel. With this in mind, investigations have been conducted. They took us first to the customs institutions (DGDA) to raise the import share of diesel, then to facilities that have already experimented with palm oil as a fuel and finally to large consumers of diesel in the region (industrial, fuel pumping stations and other factories) to collect their opinions on agro- energy. From the investigations carried out, it appears that in the Butembo region the import of diesel takes a heavy price annually which overlaps 40,000,000 $US for the last three years (2015-2017). The opinions of the respondents contribute to a consensus. They believe that palm oil-based agro-energy is a necessity in the region. However, this process requires technical, environmental and socio-economic prerequisites. At the technical level, the technological package must first be fully mastered and controlled to avoid the setbacks already experienced in the region. In terms of the environment, the extension of the palm grove to support agro-energy will have to be done with all caution, avoiding the generalized deforestation of forest massifs that are shrinking at the margins of the region. Similarly, this development will have to avoid producing the opposite effect of the expected results, which would consist in blocking the rise of the peasantry by large agricultural firms that crush the small family farming that is vital for the people in the study region. Well conducted, this process of adoption of agro-energy in the Butembo region can keep its promises. It raises many hopes, only preconditions remain the big challenges

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Regional Integration in Asia

In Asia, SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation), ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) are being considered as an active regional trading blocs although East Asian integration is on primary cooperation stage and BIMSTEC is treated as organised sub-regional trading bloc. The GCC has completed all criterion of economic integration except introduction of a single currency and ASEAN is advancing its optimum stage of monetary integration but the advancement of SAARC is halted by the shock of non-cooperation from Pakistan. Therefore, contribution of GCC in integrating Asian bloc is to scrutinise in a new outlook. In this paper, the author endeavours to show the impact of economic integration of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on the Asian economic integration in the sense that the process of integration of GCC with SAARC and ASEAN can accelerate the criterion of Asian integration process. Therefore, the author used cointegration and vector error correction model among the indicators of trade integration of exports such as Asian export share, intra export share of GCC, export concentration index of GCC, ASEAN’s export with GCC and SAARC’s export with GCC during 1995-2019. Similarly, the author applied same methodology among the trade indicator of imports such as Asian import share, intra import share of GCC, import concentration index of GCC, ASEAN’s import with GCC and SAARC’s import with GCC during the specified period. The findings revealed that Asian export share has long run significant causalities with SAARC and ASEAN export shares to GCC. Intra export share of GCC has long run causalities with SAARC and ASEAN export shares to GCC. The export concentration index of GCC has significant long run causalities with SAARC and ASEAN export shares to GCC respectively. Even, the short run causalities from export concentration index of GCC to intra export share of GCC, export share of ASEAN and SAARC with GCC and the short run causality from ASEAN export share with GCC to export share of Asia and from intra export share of GCC to export share of ASEAN with GCC were strictly observed. Again, the import share of Asia has long run causalities with the import shares of ASEAN and SAARC with GCC. The intra import share of GCC has long run causalities with the import shares of ASEAN and SAARC with GCC and the import concentration index of GCC has long run causalities with the import shares of ASEAN and SAARC with GCC respectively. The intra import share of GCC has short run causalities with import share of Asia, import concentration index of GCC and import share of ASEAN with GCC respectively. The import concentration index has short run causality with the import share of Asia. The import share of SAARC with GCC has short run causality with import share of ASEAN with GCC. The cointegration and vector error correction among Asian GDP, sum of intra export and import shares of GCC, sum of export and import shares of ASEAN with GCC, and sum of export and import shares of SAARC with GCC during 1995-2019 indicated that the GDP of Asia has long run causalities with the sum of intra export and import shares of GCC, the sum of export and import shares of ASEAN with GCC and the sum of export and import shares of SAARC with GCC and even they have short run causalities also. All these observations can justify that GCC has great impact on Asian economic integration process associated with SAARC and ASEAN.

Trade Flows and Fiscal Multipliers

We present novel insights on the role of international trade following unanticipated fiscal changes in a flexible exchange rate environment. We show analytically that fiscal multipliers can be larger in economies more open to trade, even when fiscal expansions imply trade deficits. Three factors determine how trade linkages matter: the relative import share of public and private goods, the financing of government debt, and the currency invoicing of exports. A Bayesian prior-predictive analysis shows a quantitative model bears the same predictions. Conditioning on Canadian and U.S. data, we find support for larger multipliers relative to a counterfactually closed economy.

Carving Out an Empire? How China Strategically Uses Aid to Facilitate Chinese Business Expansion in Africa **

China’s rising investment and aid flows into Africa have raised concerns over its increasing influence, triggering worries about a new scramble for Africa. This paper sorts out the motivations behind the various forms of Chinese aid, arguing that China uses different types of aid strategically to divert the recipient countries’ economic and institutional orientation towards its own interests. Exploiting the AidData set, we show that China’s official development aid (ODA) is positively related to an export bias in favour of China, suggesting that it serves to secure privileged access for Chinese firms to African resources. ODA tends to flow to less democratic regimes, because less accountable governments have more power to offer long-run privileges to their financial supporters. In contrast, we show that other official flows (OOF) are used to increase China’s import share and is positively related to institutional quality, since this has a positive influence on market growth. This suggests that OOF is mainly used to facilitate Chinese access to promising African consumer markets. We conclude that while China employs different aid flows for different economic purposes, it uses all aid flows strategically to advance its interests and create an economic sphere of influence in Africa.

MARITIME TRANSPORTATION OF INDONESIAN POLICY

In a period of 5 years (19.962 million) the number of shipping companies in Indonesia increased from 1,156 into 1,724 pieces, or increased 568 companies (an average increase of 10.5% pa). While the strength of the national shipping fleet enlarged, from 6.156 into 9.195 units (an average increase of 11.3% pa). But in terms of haulage capacity rose only slightly, namely from 6,654,753 into 7,715,438 DWT. Means the average capacity of the national shipping company declined. Throughout this period, the volume of sea trade grew 3% pa The volume of freight rose from 379,776,945 tonnes (1996) to 417,287,411 tonnes (2000), or an increase of 51,653,131 tons within five years, but not all of that growth can be met by the capacity of the national shipping company ( Indonesian-flagged vessels), even for domestic shipping (between ports in Indonesia). In 2000, the number of foreign ships which reached 1,777 units with a capacity of 5,122,307 DWT domestic load scooped by 17 million tonnes or about 31%.As a result, the Indonesian shipping industry is currently very poor. National shipping companies compete in national and international shipping market, due to weakness in all aspects, such as size, age, technology, and speed boats. In the field of international cargo (export / import) share of the national shipping company is only about 3% to 5%, with a declining trend (see Table below). These proportions are very unbalanced and unhealthy for the growth of the national shipping fleet strength.

Econometric Analysis of the Developing Countries’ Trade Indicators

In this paper, the author attempted to study the patterns of the export and import shares of the developing countries and found out the relation of export and import share with its determinants like growth rate, inflation rate, FDI, current account balance, REER, concentration index, and diversification index respectively during 1980-2016 where FDI, REER, and diversification index significantly influenced the export and import shares respectively. Both the export and import shares have upward structural breaks and smooth cyclical trends. Their VAR models are unstable and non-stationary.

NOT ALL GOODS ARE CREATED EQUAL: TARIFF CONCESSIONS IN THE KOREA–CHINA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

In this paper, we use a multinomial logit model and identify the important factors in determining the staging categories of Korean tariff concessions in the Korea–China free trade agreement (FTA). We find that most-favored-nation (MFN) tariff rates and whether a product is agricultural or not are the most influential determinants of tariff concessions in the FTA. The results also show that the effects of the determinants are heterogeneous over industries: the influence of the Chinese import share is more pronounced for agricultural products than for manufactured goods, while that of MFN tariffs is less prominent for agricultural products. The latter result implies that quite a few Korean agricultural products are heavily protected in the FTA, despite their relatively low MFN rates.

Role of SAARC in Convergence of South Asian Economies

The objective of the chapter is to analyze the role of SAARC in regional integration, trade convergence in south Asia. It also highlights the pattern and direction of export and import, share in world trade, preferential trading in South Asian countries. With strong and improving macroeconomic fundamentals, the South Asian region is well established on a high growth path. Based on secondary data on South Asian trade collected from South Asian Economic reports and other statistical volumes, the study observes a decreasing trend of export during the period 1990-2011. Consequently, the overall intra-regional trade intensity index decreased to 1.5 in the year 2010 from 4.2 in the year 2005. SAARC and SAFTA have not contributed in integration and convergence of South Asian Countries rather lead to trade divergence.

Economic Rationale, Trade Impact and Extent of Antidumping – A Case Study of Pakistan

This paper has analyzed the economic and political justification, trade impact and extent of antidumping measures initiated by Pakistan. Screening models for anti-predatory behaviour, Herfindahl-Hireshmann Index (HHI) for concentration and descriptive statistical measures are used to test the antidumping (AD) behaviour. The results are consistent with the earlier literature that AD duties have both a trade reduction and diversion effect. It is evident from the results in half of the cases studied that an economic rationale has been followed in the application of AD duties in Pakistan. Although the number of AD cases is limited, Pakistan has emerged as one of the intensive users of AD, relative to its total import share. It is also evident from the fact that intensive use of AD reduces trade and increases trade barriers, similarly, trade diversion reduces the chances of trade reduction. The key message emerging from this research is that trade diversion persists and in some cases trade diversion is substantial and it offsets the effect of AD measures on named countries to the benefit of non-named countries.

RAN/TC4 mutants identify a common requirement for snRNP and protein import into the nucleus.

Kinetic competition experiments have demonstrated that at least some factors required for the nuclear import of proteins and U snRNPs are distinct. Both import processes require energy, and in the case of protein import, the energy requirement is known to be at least partly met by GTP hydrolysis by the Ran GTPase. We have compared the effects of nonhydrolyzable GTP analogues and two mutant Ran proteins on the nuclear import of proteins and U snRNPs in vitro. The mutant Ran proteins have different defects; Q69L (glutamine 69 changed to leucine) is defective in GTP hydrolysis while T24N (threonine 24 changed to asparagine) is defective in binding GTP. Both protein and snRNP import are sensitive either to the presence of the two mutant Ran proteins, which act as dominant negative inhibitors of nuclear import, or to incubation with nonhydrolyzable GTP analogues. This demonstrates that there is a requirement for a GTPase activity for the import of U snRNPs, as well as proteins, into the nucleus. The dominant negative effects of the two mutant Ran proteins indicate that the pathways of protein and snRNP import share at lease one common component.