Friday, August 23, 2013

Another plurilateral agreement - Now it is the International Supply Chain Agreement

One often hears about mega bilateral and regional deals marring the multilateral landscape. Sad but inevitable, others say. It is also the age of plurilateral trade agreements. 

I came across the suggestion of a latest one - International Supply Chain Agreement - ISCA (?), a la a TISA or a Government Procurement Agreement.

Writing in VoxEU, Michitaka Nakatomi suggests that the time has come for a plurilateral to address the issue of global value chains and the new reality of trade. He calls tis plurilateral the International Supply Chain Agreement. I have blogged about the issue of present day world trade rules and their inadequcy of addressing the issues of complex global supply chains here and here.
"Here, I would like to remind that the goal of the Agreement is to improve global value chains, and the key to achieving that end lies in close cooperation and coordination between governments and business communities. It is essential to select areas subject to negotiation in such a way as not to end up with an agenda that is too heavy to digest."
Well, will we the launch of plurilateral negotiations on global value chains, post Bali?

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