Şeymanur Yönt 

On January 24 2024, the EU announced its strategy on outbound investments with the objective of establishing a comprehensive outbound screening policy. Although the policy outcome will not be known until 2025 at the earliest, the EU is likely to introduce an initiative resembling the US outbound investment screening regime. But the EU is not the US. Introducing such a regime will be a challenge for the EU.

Emilie Kerstens & Belén Gracia

In a recent webinar hosted by TradeExperettes, esteemed experts including WTO DDG Johanna Hill, Alice Tipping, Director of Trade and Sustainable Development at the IISD, and Tiffany Smith, Vice President for Global Trade Policy at NFTC, provided their insightful reflections on the outcomes of MC13, shedding light on its accomplishments, failures and perhaps most importantly, the path forward. 

Jane Drake-Brockman & Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås

The internet is a global public good that we can no longer take for granted. Recent years have  witnessed escalating constraints on cross-border  data transfers - undermining the integrity of the internet itself, and threatening the global digital transformation. The WTO has a critical role to play to keep markets open, particularly to the benefit of MSMEs firms in developing countries. MC13 can contribute to this goal.

Princess Puskas

Digital payments have emerged as an alternative to the traditional concept of money. Notably, mobile money has been revolutionary for cross-border remittances in Africa, and a major catalyst for payments growth in the continent. However, despite its increased use and the likelihood it will have a more radical and lasting effect on African markets, there are still remaining challenges to the adoption of mobile money across borders.

Elaine Fahey

Data is the ‘lifeblood’ of the economies and digital trade across the world, but it is also the source of much concern about privacy rights, the capacity for commercial manipulation of personal information, and State and private actor disputes. Institutionalisation can synthesise these many cross-cutting themes and transatlantic efforts in the area of data privacy constitutes a key case study on this topic.

Mia Mikic & Sherry M. Stephenson

What are logistics? From the perspective of late 2022 asking this question may appear ridiculous. The term has been used so much in all aspects of our lives for the last three years that we feel we can intimately relate to it. But do we know what it actually is? The APEC region took the lead in 2022 in pushing forward a better understanding of the important but often underappreciated logistics activities to examine their role in moving essential goods across borders.

Amalie G. Thystrup

Trade and gender is in the spotlight. The international community has committed to making trade more inclusive, and taken steps to facilitate women’s participation in the global trading system.

Pamela Ugaz

The widespread lockdown imposed across the globe has slowed down economic activities, in particular cross-border trade.

Emmanuelle Ganne

Some 60 years after the invention of the container, international trade may be undergoing a new revolution.