Infrastructure, Trade Expansion and Regional Integration: Global Experience and Lessons for Africa

In recent years, regional integration has gained considerable importance among policymakers in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (often referred to as the BBIN region). There is an understanding that enhanced intra-regional trade can be a powerful tool in accelerating economic growth and reducing poverty in the BBIN region. Tapping into this potential requires careful attention to issues of exclusion and in ensuring that women and men have equal opportunity to participate and benefit from enhanced regional trade. This article discusses challenges and opportunities for women’s participation in regional trade, presents a case study of women’s participation and proposes policy recommendations for inclusive intra-BBIN trade expansion. The recommendations include strengthening female-dominated sectors with potential for intra-regional trade, supporting women’s transition to higher levels of trade value chains, facilitating female entrepreneurs’ access to productive resources and cross-border markets, mainstreaming gender in trade policy design and implementation and adopting gender-sensitive trade facilitation measures.

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Trade Potential in Arab Nations: The Case of the GCC and PAFTA

Review of Middle East Economics and Finance ◽

10.1515/rmeef-2020-0038 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Dimitrios Dadakas

Keyword(s):

Free Trade ◽

Regional Integration ◽

Free Trade Area ◽

Trade Flows ◽

Trade Expansion ◽

Maximum Capacity ◽

Trade Area ◽

The World ◽

Trade Potential ◽

Potential Measure

Abstract We examine trade flows for Arab nations concentrating on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Pan-Arab Free Trade Area (PAFTA) areas, to identify opportunities to enhance intra-Arab trade and facilitate regional integration. We employ panel data for the years 2003–2017 and a structural gravity model together with an “aggregate” trade potential measure that treats the GCC and PAFTA areas as single countries. Results suggest that, by 2015, intra-area trade had reached maximum capacity for both blocs. Potential to trade also reached capacity with many of the largest Free Trade Areas around the world, however, opportunities for trade expansion that still exist with the MERCOSUR and ASEAN, as well as many distinct destinations, can assist in strategic planning to enhance integration efforts.

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Trends of Regional Integration on the Post-Soviet Space: Results of Quantitative Analysis

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2010-7-94-107 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 94-107 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

E. Vinokurov ◽

A. Libman

Keyword(s):

Regional Integration ◽

Market Integration ◽

Trade Integration ◽

Economic Community ◽

Small Countries ◽

Economic Interaction ◽

Leading Position ◽

Soviet Space ◽

And Migration ◽

Post Soviet Space

The paper applies a new dataset of the System of Indicators of Eurasian Integration to evaluate the changes of level and direction of economic interaction of the post-Soviet states in the last decade. It analyzes the integration dynamics in the area of trade and migration as well as on three functional markets of agricultural goods, electricity and educational services. The paper concludes that the level of trade integration on the post-Soviet space continues declining, while there is a rapid increase of the labor market integration. Three largest countries of the Eurasian Economic Community - Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan - demonstrate positive integration dynamics, but small countries maintain the leading position in the area of post-Soviet integration.

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The Belt and Road Initiative and Sino-Russian economic cooperation: Is there one more chance for us?

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2019-12-47-71 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 47-71

Author(s):

Petr M. Mozias

Keyword(s):

Regional Integration ◽

Raw Materials ◽

Belt And Road Initiative ◽

Stage Of Development ◽

Belt And Road ◽

Flexible Framework ◽

The One ◽

International Transactions ◽

The Belt And Road ◽

Current Stage

China’s Belt and Road Initiative could be treated ambiguously. On the one hand, it is intended to transform the newly acquired economic potential of that country into its higher status in the world. China invites a lot of nations to build up gigantic transit corridors by joint efforts, and doing so it applies productively its capital and technologies. International transactions in RMB are also being expanded. But, on the other hand, the Belt and Road Initiative is also a necessity for China to cope with some evident problems of its current stage of development, such as industrial overcapacity, overdependence on imports of raw materials from a narrow circle of countries, and a subordinate status in global value chains. For Russia participation in the Belt and Road Initiative may be fruitful, since the very character of that project provides us with a space to manoeuvre. By now, Russian exports to China consist primarily of fuels and other commodities. More active industrial policy is needed to correct this situation . A flexible framework of the Belt and Road Initiative is more suitable for this objective to be achieved, rather than traditional forms of regional integration, such as a free trade zone.

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From Trinidad and Tobago to the World: Determining the role of Calypso in a new Era

Caribbean Quilt ◽

10.33137/caribbeanquilt.v5i0.34367 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 7-11

Author(s):

Malek Abdel-Shehid

Keyword(s):

Trinidad And Tobago ◽

Regional Integration ◽

West African ◽

Major Influence ◽

New Era ◽

Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽

Cultural Sovereignty ◽

Caribbean Culture ◽

Musical Cultures

Calypso is a popular Caribbean musical genre that originated in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The genre was developed primarily by enslaved West Africans brought to the region via the transatlantic slave trade during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although West-African Kaiso music was a major influence, the genre has also been shaped by other African genres, and by Indian, British, French, and Spanish musical cultures. Emerging in the early twentieth century, Calypso became a tool of resistance by Afro-Caribbean working-class Trinbagonians. Calypso flourished in Trinidad due to a combination of factors—namely, the migration of Afro-Caribbean people from across the region in search of upward social mobility. These people sought to expose the injustices perpetrated by a foreign European and a domestic elite against labourers in industries such as petroleum extraction. The genre is heavily anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and anti-elitist, and it advocated for regional integration. Although this did not occur immediately, Calypsonians sought to establish unity across the region regardless of race, nationality, and class through their songwriting and performing. Today, Calypso remains a unifying force and an important part of Caribbean culture. Considering Calypso's history and purpose, as well as its ever-changing creators and audiences, this essay will demonstrate that the goal of regional integration is not possible without cultural sovereignty.

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