On 17 July 2007, prior to the meeting of the WTO-TNC on July 26, 2007, the Chairman of the WTO Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Ambassador Don Stephenson of Canada, circulated a draft text on NAMA modalities titled Chairman’s Introduction to the Draft NAMA Modalities. In the draft modalities the NAMA Chairman came up with a number of suggestions towards further liberalization of industrial tariffs...

In the Third Industrial Master Plan, several service sub-sectors were identified as new sources of growth for the country, including education services. Apart from this sector’s contribution towards growth, private higher education institutions (PHEIs) can also contribute towards increasing access to education and equity. Malaysia aims to be a global education hub by 2010. In view of the above, this study aims to explore the trade and investment links in private higher education in Malaysia.

The contribution of trade in services and associated remittances to the economies of developing countries is increasingly being recognized and the liberalization of the movement of natural persons (Mode 4 trade under GATS) is seen by many as an effective to ensure developing countries benefit from globalization. In that context, this study aimed at assessing the impact of remittances by women migrant workers on poverty reduction in Nepal.

The impact of international trade and investment policy reforms on the Indonesian economy, focusing on economic growth and development of domestic manufacturing industry has been studied extensively enough. However, the implication of these trade and investment policy reforms on the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia remains an under-researched area of both the literature on SMEs in Indonesia and in general.

The global automotive industry, increasingly characterized by global mergers and relocation of production centers to emerging developing economies, is in the grips of a global price-war. The industry is subject to imperfect competition which has resulted in too much of everything — too much capacity, too many competitors and too much redundancy and overlap. The industry is concerned with consumer demands for styling, safety, and comfort; and with labor relations and manufacturing efficiency.

This study assesses the strengths and weaknesses of reforms in the banking and insurance industries. Banking sector performance is analysed using various indicators as well as Principle Component Analysis techniques. A comparative case study of three banks with different ownership structures is presented. The study concludes with important conclusions and policy implications for future reforms based on the findings.

This study reviews the development of the banking and insurance sectors in Nepal and the effect of reforms and commitments linked to these sectors since the 1980s, when financial sector liberalization in Nepal began with deregulation of the interest rate structure and opening of the banking sector to foreign investors. Now, three fourth of foreign equity participation is permissible in the banking sector. The insurance sector is almost fully liberalized with 100 per cent foreign equity participation on a case by case basis.

This study reviews the development of the banking and insurance sectors in Malaysia since the 1980s, with a particular attention to the effects and sequencing of the various reforms as well as the impact of services trade liberalization and related commitments. Over the 31 years since independence in 1957, the Malaysian economy transformed itself from an agriculture based, to a manufacturing one. This was the result of maintaining an open and liberal trading regime with responsible economic policies to meet the challenges of internal and external imbalances.

This paper draws from three country case studies of the liberalization and development of the banking and insurance service sectors in Bangladesh, Nepal and Malaysia, which were undertaken as part of an ARTNeT regional study on trade in services led by the author. The paper first explores the relationship between financial and economic development, and the causality between service sector liberalization and financial deepening.

Literature on FDI and trade has mainly concentrated on export-substituting or export-complementary nature of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the relationship between FDI and trade has become far more complex in the current WTO regime wherein several developing countries have initiated import liberalisation and entered into trading arrangements. These have drastically reduced trading costs and encouraged trade.