GDLN Videoconference

ㅁ Title　　 : Global Trade Facilitation: Trends and challenges
ㅁ Date　　 : April 9 (Wed), 2014, 11:30~14:00(Seoul Time)
ㅁ Venue　 : KDI School, Videoconference #303
ㅁ Hosted by : Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center(AFDC), The World Bank, KDI School and Tokyo Development Learning Center(TDLC)

Background

As the economic globalization goes in depth, the developing countries, which account for over 40 percent of the global trade, are playing an increasingly important role in global economy and trade. Since the financial crisis, the global economic and trade pattern has been readjusted, and new rules of global trade, which pursue higher liberalization in business operation, investment and services, and emphasize more on fair competition and protection of rights and interests, has been established. The new pattern may to a large extent reshape the external environment of the emerging economies and reconstruct the global economic value chain, and thus may again repel the emerging economies, including China, to the edge of the international trade system. Emerging economies are therefore confronted with severe challenges to establish more reasonable economic and trade policies for the purpose of playing an even more active role in the global economy and boosting sustainable local economic development.

In recent years, China witnessed a rapid growth in its foreign trade. In 2012, China has surpassed the US to become the world’s biggest trade country with its overall foreign trade volume reaching $3.87 trillion. However, like the other developing countries, China lacks diversity in its foreign trade structure and received limited sharing in global value chains. Therefore, it’s of China’s top priority to further develop trade in services and enhance its level of investment liberalization to be further integrated into the global economy and contribute to its economic and structural transformation and upgrading.

The Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center (AFDC) is established by the Chinese government aiming to strengthen institutional capacity building in the areas of finance and development for the developing economies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Objective

In order to summarize and share experience on“the New Pattern of Global Trade”, AFDC plans to launch a series of VC seminars in 2014 in collaboration with the World Bank and other GDLN affiliates to cope with opportunities and challenges for the emerging economies.