Challenges Of Implementing Essay: Multilateral Trade Rules.

You are required to prepare a research essay on the following question:

In democratic societies, governments are given mandates to institute policy measures and strategies that will promote sustainable economic development or which advance national interests and priorities. However, their ability to successfully carry out these mandates may be hampered by multilateral trade rules and the overall reality that the policies that they need to implement must be reconcilable with the legitimate trading interests of other states.

Using a case study of one or more states that has / have encountered challenges in relation to the government’s implementation of policies and strategies, discuss this statement.

Sustainable Economic Development

The economic progress and development of a nation depends on the ability of the country to strategically use its economic, trade and agricultural policies. The trade economic and agriculture policies are all integral part of overall governance of a country. Generally the elected governments of sovereign nations such Canada, United States of America, India and others have the responsibility to use trade and agricultural policies to achieve economic progress and development.

The economy of a country is primarily dependant on the economic, agricultural and trade policies of the country. A nation will never proposer if it fails to merge the trade and agricultural policies in a manner suitable for the economic prosperity and development of the nation. Neglecting any one at the behest of other would resulted in economic discomfort in the future (Sassen, 2016).

In developing nations the governments look to take initiatives to achieve sustainable development and economic progress by conglomeration of economic, trade and agricultural policies. Understanding the importance of globalization for developing countries is even more critical than developed nations. Use of Foreign Direct Investments in different sectors and industries could have major implications to the overall economy of developing countries hence, proper strategy shall be followed (Storey, 2016).

A developing country like India which is also one of the fasted growing economy in the world has to balance its economic and trade affairs along with agricultural aspects to ensure SED. Despite one of the fastest growing economy Indian economy to a large extent is still dependant on the agricultural activities. Considering the immense importance of agriculture and its prosperity for the overall development of the country, number of initiatives have been taken to introduce advanced technology and innovative ideas to increase agricultural productivity. Thus, the agricultural policy of the country is equally important along with trade and economic policies (Giddens, 2018).

Subsequent to the globalization the internal boundaries between countries have been almost wiped off to allow free flow of economic and trade activities between different countries. The strategy to deal with the forces of globalization has played a major role in the economic progress and development of a nation. The country which have used economic policies effectives have been managed to achieve sustainable advantage over nations that have failed to realize the opportunities that globalization offers (Charles Jr, Schmidheiny & Watts, 2017).

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) decisions in a developing country like India has a major implications on the growth of the economy and progress of the country. India decided to allow FDI in its economy in the year 1994 and opened its economy to the rest of the world since then. The amount of FDI in the economy of the country since then has increased significantly. However, in recent years there has been significant decline in FDI in the economy. The following graph shows the fluctuations in FDI in the country since 1996.

It is clearly visible from the above graph that the FDI has increased significantly in the country’s economy since 1996. The economic progress and development of the country to a significant over the last two decades have been mainly due to the strategy of the country to use FDI.

Impact on Developing Nations

With ever increasing effects of globalization the importance of international trade organizations such as World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other such organizations have increased significantly. The policies of these organizations have started to gain importance in all across the globe however, as these organizations operate as per the voting rights of different countries, it is obvious that larger economies such as USA, Russia, Canada and other such countries have major role in these organizations compared to relatively smaller nations (Charter, 2017).

In an increasingly globalized world the role of WTO in trade and economic affairs have increased simultaneously with the implementation of globalization. WTO has a major role in determining the international trade policies and the member countries of the organization are bound to comply with these trade policies. Developing and underdeveloped nations have faced increasing amount of trouble to formulate trade and agricultural policies suitable for the economic progress and development of these nations due to the trade policies of WTO that allows significant leverage to developed nations as opposed to developing and under developed nations. It is a challenge for developing and under developed nations to formulate effective economic, trade, import and export policies with the objective of achieving economic prosperity and development (Coale & Hoover, 2015).    

WTO in total has 149 member countries. However, the voting rights of member countries are not equal and since the organization is run as per majority rules often the agreement signed by the organization is in favour of advanced and developed nations and not so much in the interests of developing and under developed nations (Cypher, 2014).

The General Agreement on Trade and Tariff signed by all the member countries and 4 other countries thus totalling to one hundred and fifty three countries is claimed to be the most successful trade agreement also has significant amount of challenges to the developing countries.       

WTO has signed numerous regional trade agreements (RTA) in recent years. In fact the graph below shows the evolution of RTA since 1940.

It is clearly visible in the above graph that there has been a huge increase in RTA since 1992. The RTA has often act as drawbacks to the developing and underdeveloped countries (Gay, 2016).

Apart from that there has been number of agreement signed by the member countries of WTO on environment protection issues. All these agreements are mostly in favour of advanced and developed economies and are deterrent to the path of development for developing and under developed nations such as China, India, Brazil and others (Lippit, 2018).    

Despite the number of issues mentioned above countries such China, India, Brazil and other developing nations have continued on the path economic growth and prosperity to achieve sustainable economic development (SED) by use of effective economic, trade, import export and agricultural policies. Especially countries such as India and China which also have significant proportion of their total Gross Domestic Products (GDP) contributed by the agricultural sector have used following strategies to achieve SED (Carley & Christie, 2017).

Forces of Globalization and its Effects on Policies

Both India and China have been very successful in attracting foreign investments. In fact both the countries are two of the most desirable destination for foreign investors. In recent years however, there have been little drop in FDI in India but according to the experts, it is only a passing phase and the country will again be back on track as far as FDI is concerned (Schumpeter, 2017).

Both China and India are two of the most populous countries on the face of the planet. Thus, there is no dearth in demand in both these countries. Hence, for investors both the countries are extremely attractive. China in comparison to India have better utilized its population as far as equality in national income level is concerned. Both countries have used the population effectively in the economic decision and policies (Leigh & Blakely, 2016).

Entering into economic and trade ties with advanced economies around the world is extremely important for developing nations. Developing countries like China, India and Brazil have showed the world how developing trade ties with advanced economies around the globe can positively fuel the economic growth and prosperity. These nations over the years have entered into number of trade agreements with advanced economies such USA, Russia, Canada, France and other Western and European countries to fuel economic growth in their respective countries (Frank, 2018).

Both India and China have most number of smart phone users in all across the globe along with United States of America. The country has made effective use of advanced technology and innovation to connect individual with market places. As a result the path to economic development and progress in these countries have smoothen.    

It is expected that by the end of 2025 India will be the global hum of e-commerce with estimated sales expend to cross multi billion dollars. Similarly China has also seen a significant increase in the e-commerce activities with the revenue of e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and other companies’ sky rocketing in recent years. Both the countries have used the potential of e-commerce to strengthen the respective economies.

Governments in developing countries like China, India Brazil and other nations have taken specific steps to improve the infrastructure and other conditions to make it easier for investors to conduct business in these countries. As a result all these countries have seen significant increase in of economic and business activities (Leigh & Blakely, 2016).

The share of contributions of service sector to the GDP of developing nations has increased significantly over the years. One of the reasons that these nations have managed to achieve SED is due to the increase amount contributions to the GDP of these nations by services sectors.

Conclusions: 

Despite the number of issues faced by the developing nations in their endeavour to achieve sustainable economic development the economic, trade and agricultural policies have helped the countries like India, China, Brazil and other developing nations to achieve sustainable economic development and continue on the path of development. The globalization has also helped these countries to expand the economies of these nations.

References:

Carley, M., & Christie, I. (2017). Managing sustainable development. Routledge.

Charles Jr, O. H., Schmidheiny, S., & Watts, P. (2017). Walking the talk: The business case for sustainable development. Routledge.

Charter, M. (2017). Greener marketing: A responsible approach to business. Routledge.

Coale, A. J., & Hoover, E. M. (2015). Population growth and economic development. Princeton University Press.

Cypher, J. (2014). The process of economic development. Routledge.

Frank, A. G. (2018). The development of underdevelopment. In Promise of development (pp. 111-123). Routledge.

Gay, R. D. (2016). Effect of macroeconomic variables on stock market returns for four emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The International Business & Economics Research Journal (Online), 15(3), 119.

Giddens, A. (2018). Globalization. In Sociology of Globalization (pp. 19-26). Routledge.

Leigh, N. G., & Blakely, E. J. (2016). Planning local economic development: Theory and practice. SAGE publications.

Lippit, V. D. (2018). The economic development of China (Vol. 9). Routledge.

Low, P. (2016). International trade and the environment. UNISIA, (30), 95-99.

Sassen, S. (2016). The Global City: Strategic Site, New Frontier. In Managing Urban Futures (pp. 89-104). Routledge.

Schumpeter, J. A. (2017). Theory of economic development. Routledge.

Storey, D. J. (2016). Understanding the small business sector. Routledge.