Agricultural Restructure Policy in Vietnam and Practical Application for Sustainable Development in Agriculture

The Vietnam’s agricultural sector had to challenge with its course and learned lessons of further development. Novel policy might be adopted to encourage the private investments and sectors in agriculture. Furthermore, an introduction of new models such as climate-smart or green agriculture and application of modern technology increased productivity at the same time and creating jobs for millions of agricultural workers and reversing the massive rural-urban migration flux. Vietnam’s agricultural sector needs to maintain the reform momentum, particularly liberalization policy, and to boost up agricultural potential. Obstacles such as land limitation policy must be removed to enable large-scale production and encourage private investment in the agricultural sector. To avoid being trapped by its own success, Vietnam is now shifting the old development paradigm that focuses too much on the quantity to the quality of the agricultural production. The government makes major efforts to achieve at the same time agricultural growth, better livelihood of the farmer, and the development of the rural areas. However, Vietnam still needs to prepare a “transition strategy” to overcome the impact of the technological progress on the traditional agricultural workers.

Benefits of Economic Liberalization in Growth and Development of Industry: With Reference to Butwal Industrial Area of Nepal

Economic liberalization policy is important to speed up the development activities. Nepal has been following the policy of economic liberalization since the mid-1980s which was accelerated with the start of 1990s. Nepal adopted economic liberalization to minimize public expenditure burden of loss-making public enterprises, mobilize private savings, investments, and FDI (Foreign Domestic Investment) as well as to meet Multilateral Donors conditions of economic reform. The study was conducted to identify the benefit of economic liberalization in industrial growth and development in Nepal. The study was conducted in the Butwal area of Province 5. It was a cross-section study based on the quantitative design. There was total 385 respondents selected from among the industrialists, traders, and bankers. The result shows that there were positive impactson the various economic indicators of industry like quantitative restrictions in trade had been removed, bilateral trade agreement facilitated free flow of goods and services, deregulated the monopoly of market, controlling in price structure, privatization of public services, flexibility in the exchange rate, elimination of import license and quotas, liberalization of foreign investments, High and sustained growth through market-based resource allocation, infusion of competition in the economy, reduction of state domination, and encouragement of private participation in economic activities were the added advantages of liberalization. There was significant difference in the response of industrialists, traders and bankers on benefit of economic liberalization in industrial growth and development in Nepal such as promotion of free trade, deregulation of the monopoly market, elimination of subsidies, price controls and other more benefits.

Trade Liberalization Policy and Competitiveness of Cocoa Beans Exports in Nigeria (1961-2017)

The cocoa sector in Nigeria has experienced decline in production, yield, exports coupled with its inability to attain global standards and targets and, gradual loss of competitiveness at the world market. Trade liberalization was government’s panacea to the sector’s problem although, cocoa competitiveness remains an issue since liberalization. Therefore, the relationship between trade liberalization policy and competitiveness of Nigeria’s cocoa exports was examined in this study using data for the period 1961-2017. Cocoa market share was used to measure competitiveness while analytical tools employed were: ADF test, Johansen co-integration test and the vector error correction model (VECM). Market share, quantity of cocoa export and inflation rate were stationary at original level while others, at first difference. The co-integration test showed seven co-integrating equations. Trade liberalization policy was found to be an important driver of competitiveness. In addition, area harvested, production quantity and export quantity positively influenced competitiveness while world price of cocoa, interest rate on agricultural loans, exchange rate and trade liberalization influenced negatively. Therefore, appropriate trade policy formulation and implementation is recommended while, specific attention should be paid to monetary policies and cocoa production by the government.

Interest Rate Liberalization and Capital Misallocations

We study the consequences of interest rate liberalization in a two-sector general equilibrium model of China. The model captures a key feature of China’s distorted financial system: state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have greater incentive to expand production and easier access to credit than private firms. In this second-best environment, interest rate liberalization can improve capital allocations within each sector but can also exacerbate misallocations across sectors. Under calibrated parameters, the liberalization policy can reduce aggregate productivity and welfare unless other policy reforms are also implemented to alleviate SOEs’ distorted incentives or improve private firms’ credit access. (JEL E43, E44, G32, L32, P24, P31, P34)

The Role of Institutional Quality in Trade-Growth Nexus: The Case of Emerging Economies

This study aims at investigating the relationship between trade openness and economic growth after incorporating the role of institutions. Generalized method of moments (GMM) system technique is applied by using data of 17 major emerging market economies (EMEs) for the period 1995-2018. The empirical evidence suggests that trade liberalization affects economic growth positively and significantly while institutions play a supportive role in this regard. The interaction terms are also generated to test the impact of the institutional environment on the trade-growth relationship. The empirical results are robust to various specifications, confirming the positive role of institutions in trade- growth nexus. The countries should develop a conducive institutional and political environment to ensure the beneficial growth effects of trade liberalization policy.

Political Liberalization and Emerging Civil Society in Uzbekistan: The Cases of Public Reaction to Demolition Program and the Use of Forced Labor

Conventional wisdom highlights civil society as an integral component of a democratic society. Due to the dominance of the state in all aspects of life, civil society was largely absent in Uzbekistan until the change of government in 2016. The new President Mirziyoyev’s liberalization policy towards media gave birth to a strong group of opinion formers visible on social media platforms, otherwise known as “bloggers”. This paper seeks to identify how Mirziyoyev’s liberalization policy affects Uzbekistan’s path to consolidate its democracy. It argues that the recent political liberalization showed early signs of the emergence of civil society groups. To support this argument, the paper uses the case of two unrelated incidents: large scale demolition of people’s properties by the khokimiyat in Urganch, and forced labor of public servants in the Bukhara region.

A CGE Analysis of Indonesia's Free Trade Agreements

Using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) CGE model of the global economy, this essay analyses how much trade agreements between Indonesia and its top three trading partners – China, Japan, and the USA – could benefit Indonesia and those trading partners. In addition, an analysis of unilateral trade liberalization in Indonesia is included to provide a comparison of alternative trade liberalization policy strategies. The study conducts experiments by simulating the potential effect of the removal tariffs on imported merchandise under each liberalization scenario. The result suggests that the impact of trade liberalization is variable between strategies, but the greatest economic benefit is from the unilateral scenario. However, the restrictiveness of preferential RoO and other regulations in bilateral agreements would limit the scope for achieving the full benefit projected for the bilateral liberalization scenarios – discount rates of around 25 percent have been suggested.