SME Competitiveness Outlook 2017. The Region: A Door to Global trade
Abstract
This year’s report focuses on regional trade, the most common form of trade for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It finds that deep regional trade agreements help deliver inclusive growth. These agreements attract value chain activity and narrow the competitiveness gap between large and small firms. When investment is part of such agreements, the impact is stronger.
The report provides targeted advice for policymakers, businesses, and trade and investment support institutions. It combines data analysis, case studies, academic insights and opinions by thought leaders.
Policymakers, investors, exporters and importers receive key information on how to identify new partners and market opportunities. The publication contains 50 country profiles, featuring detailed SME competitiveness assessments and information on each country’s export potential within and outside their geographical region. Success stories of value chain integration are provided for Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Kenya and Morocco.
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Organizations can accelerate the pace of quality improvements by ensuring that Total Quality efforts are driven from organizational strategy. In the process of doing this, a success paradigm can be created that allows different units of an organization to work more effectively toward a shared purpose. The significant examples presented here are the result of almost a decade of direct research and application in a very diverse set of organizations, including Fortune 500 manufacturing and services firms, non-profit organizations, health care organizations, and public education. The result is a specific process with enough detail for professional managers to read the book and implement the process in their own organizations. CEOs and NPO professionals, as well as business academics and upper level students, should find significant examples in an array of industries and situations that make this reading especially worthwhile.
The approach described in this book centers around Critical Success Factors which Rockart introduced in 1979. It is a learning-oriented approach to planning that the authors have implemented in a variety of settings, including Boeing, Air Midwest, and Conway Hospital. The important relationship between management control and strategic planning styles is discussed in several interesting chapters. Another topic that the authors address is the reinventing of government and the feasibility of applying the process in that environment. . Several examples of governments who attempted the task are offered along with discussion of their level of success. The approach described in this book is a powerful tool that can be used to develop a common vision in any organization.
This chapter analyzes Latin America’s participation in the offshore services industry and its contribution to global service trade by using the global value chain (GVC) framework. It examines the structure of the industry, the business models driving the lead firms in the sector, and favorable factors of its different countries. The GVC framework allows one to understand how this global industry is organized by examining the structure and dynamics of different actors involved. This framework is also a useful tool to trace the shifting patterns of global demand and supply, to link geographically dispersed activities and actors, and to determine the roles they play in developed and developing countries alike. The GVC methodology focuses on the sequences of value-added within an industry, from conception to production and end use. It examines the job descriptions, technologies, standards, regulations, products, processes, and markets in specific industries and places, thus providing a holistic view of this global industry from both the top down and the bottom up, and facilitates an understanding for firms and policy makers in developing countries to drive growth.
WTO law sets the global minimum standards for trade regulation, while allowing some regulatory flexibility for developing countries. The exact scope of regulatory flexibility is often unclear and, at times, flexibility may be counterproductive to sustainable economic growth in developing countries. Undisputedly, developing countries would have some flexibility with respect to tailoring preferential services trade agreements to their individual economic needs and circumstances, but empirical data from over 280 preferential services trade agreements worldwide shows that this flexibility is rarely used. This volume clarifies the regulatory scope of flexibility for preferential services trade agreements between developing countries by linking the legal interpretation of WTO law with evidence from research in economics and political sciences. The book suggests that the current regulatory framework leaves room for meaningful flexibility for developing countries, and encourages policymakers and scholars to take these flexibilities into consideration in their design and study of trade policies.
Preferential trade agreements have boomed in recent years and extended their reach well beyond tariff reduction, to cover policy areas such as investment, services, competition and intellectual property rights. This paper uses new information on the content of preferential trade agreements to examine the trade effects of deep agreements and revisit the classic Vinerian question of trade creation and trade diversion. Our results indicate that deep agreements lead to more trade creation and less trade diversion than shallow agreements. Furthermore, some provisions of deep agreements have a public good aspect and increase trade also with non‐members. Création et détournement de commerce dans les accords profonds. Les accords commerciaux préférentiels gagnent en popularité depuis quelques années et s'étendent désormais bien au‐delà de la réduction tarifaire, couvrant des domaines politiques comme l'investissement, les services, la concurrence et les droits de propriété intellectuelle. Cet article utilise de nouveaux renseignements sur le contenu des accords commerciaux préférentiels pour examiner les effets sur le commerce des accords profonds et revoir la question vinerienne classique de la création et du détournement de commerce. Nos résultats indiquent que, par rapport aux accords peu profonds, les accords profonds engendrent davantage de création de commerce et diminuent le détournement de commerce. De plus, certaines dispositions des accords profonds abordent la question du bien collectif et accroissent également le commerce avec les non‐membres.
