Sangeeta Khorana

European Union–India Trade Negotiations: One Step Forward, One Back?

This article contributes to debates on the proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), by analysing novel empirical material: the EU–India FTA negotiations, which have attracted little academic scrutiny. By elaborating on the underlying negotiating interests and strategies of the EU and India, the article examines the significance of overarching interests in ongoing negotiations and articulates the defensive and offensive interests of both parties. It presents a vision of the controversial and milieu-shaping interests at stake, which offer an alternative theoretical explanation for the pursuit of FTAs, and highlights possible outcome scenarios.

Bilateral Trade Agreements in the Era of Globalization

Contents: Preface 1. Imagine 2. Preferential Trade Agreements and the Global Trading Environment 3. Indias Engagement with the World Economy 4. The Evolution of EU-India Trade Relations 5. The Indian Clothing and Footwear Industries 6. Non Tariff Barriers 7. Preparing for an India-EU Trade Agreement 8. Oh East is East, and West is West, but What If the Twain Shall Meet? References Index

EU-India Free Trade Agreement Deal or No Deal?

The European Union (EU) and India are currently negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) and investment framework. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the EU-India FTA will act as a building block for the trading partners. This article addresses the broader concerns about compatibility; prospects of and the challenges to the proposed EU-India FTA; identifies the building and stumbling blocks in the ongoing negotiations; and suggests a way forward from a policy perspective. The findings suggest that to maximize the potential benefits of this FTA, trade barriers (tariff and non-tariff) in goods and services sectors should be addressed. This must be complemented by a mutually agreeable time frame to conclude negotiations in areas where interests of the partners vary.

Governance Issues in the EU's E‐Procurement Framework

Government procurement accounts for a considerable proportion of economic activity in the European Union (EU) yet resists integration and harmonization. The European Commission believes that the solution to integrating government procurement into the single market lies in e-procurement. While technology has the potential to improve the efficacy of procurement processes among EU Member States, its use raises governance issues that must be addressed as a co-requisite to adopting the technological solution. This article outlines the Commissions e-procurement policy, develops an analytical structure for assessing the framework and highlights governance issues that need addressing if e-procurement is to deliver on its promise.

Why Developing Countries Have Failed to Increase Their Exports of Agricultural Processed Products

The article uses the case study of coffee, tea and cocoa to analyse whether tariff escalation constitutes a barrier to market access that thwarts diversification efforts of developing countries into exports of value‐added agricultural processed products. It also examines the extent to which non‐tariff barriers act as market access barriers that constrain developing countries from developing their exports of agricultural processed products. Our analysis shows that tariff escalation is not the main barrier; rather it is the prevalence of non‐tariff barriers (including domestic non‐tariff barriers) that limits the ability of developing countries to increase their agricultural processed exports. This has important policy implications in terms of the emphasis that trade negotiators and policy planners should place on addressing non‐tariff barriers.

Multiple order-up-to policy for mitigating bullwhip effect in supply chain network

This paper proposes a multiple order-up-to policy based inventory replenishment scheme to mitigate the bullwhip effect in a multi-stage supply chain scenario, where various transportation modes are available between the supply chain (SC) participants. The proposed policy is similar to the fixed order-up-to policy approach where replenishment decision “how much to order” is made periodically on the basis of the pre-decided order-up-to inventory level. In the proposed policy, optimal multiple order-up-to levels are assigned to each SC participants, which provides decision making reference point for deciding the transportation related order quantity. Subsequently, a mathematical model is established to define optimal multiple order-up-to levels for each SC participants that aims to maximize overall profit from the SC network. In parallel, the model ensures the control over supply chain pipeline inventory, high satisfaction of customer demand and enables timely utilization of available transportation modes. Findings from the various numerical datasets including stochastic customer demand and lead times validate that—the proposed optimal multiple order-up-to policy based inventory replenishment scheme can be a viable alternative for mitigating the bullwhip effect and well-coordinated SC. Moreover, determining the multiple order-up-to levels is a NP hard combinatorial optimization problem. It is found that the implementation of new emerging optimization algorithm named bacterial foraging algorithm (BFA) has presented superior optimization performances. The robustness and applicability of the BFA algorithm are further validated statistically by employing the percentage heuristic gap and two-way ANOVA analysis.

Handbook on the EU and International Trade

e Handbook on the EU and International Trade presents a multidisciplinary overview of the major perspectives, actors and issues in contemporary EU trade relations. Changes in institutional dynamics, Brexit, the politicisation of trade, competing foreign policy agendas, and adaptation to trade patterns of value chains and the digital and knowledge economy are reshaping the European Unions trade policy. e authors tackle how these challenges frame the aims, processes and e ectiveness of trade policy making in the context of the EUs trade relations with developed, developing and emerging states in the global economy.

Modelling Effects of Tariff Liberalisation on India’s Key Export Sectors: Analysis of the EU–India Free Trade Agreement

Trade agreements are increasingly being negotiated between developed and emerging economy partners. An example is the EU–India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) for which negotiations began in 2007. There has been a debate on the potential effects of the proposed FTA and how this can impact on India’s key export sectors. Our study addresses this aspect from a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling perspective. Using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) framework, we analyse trade and welfare impacts of the proposed FTA between the EU and India. Two scenarios are modelled: first, complete and immediate elimination of tariff on all goods traded and second, selective tariff elimination on textiles, wearing apparel and leather goods—products in which India has a comparative advantage. Results under both scenarios show that India enjoys positive welfare effects though there is a possibility of trade diversion. Under scenario 1, India loses due to a negative terms of trade (ToT) effect. Under scenario 2, with selective sectoral liberalisation, gains are mainly concentrated in the textiles, wearing apparel and leather sectors. There is a positive output effect from change in demand for factors of production, suggesting that the proposed FTA could lead to relocation of labour-intensive production to India. JEL Classification: F15, F47, F62

India and the Indian Ocean region

International relations are in a state of dynamic transition, with the emergence of an assertive China, growing India and the United States (US) as main players in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). China’s increasing geopolitical influence (developed in the so-called String of Pearls theory) and assertiveness in the South China Seas, complemented by the US policy aimed at enhancing operational integration in the region has led India to realign and outline its strategic vision under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to play a significant role in the IOR. This Special Issue of JIOR fleshes out this theme and other related topical issues in the region, focussing in particular on the growing interplay between China, India and the US – the three pillars – that play an increasingly important role in the reconfiguration of geopolitics in the IOR. The evolving strategic importance of India Ocean (IO) has been in focus recently when, on 12 July 2016, Beijing’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea suffered a major blow as a result of a landmark decision of the Hague Permanent Court of the Arbitration in favour of the Philippines. The relevance of this decision is resounding in that the IOR is a highly strategic waterway rich in fishery resources, and potentially oil and other energies, which makes it among one of the most coveted in the world with no less than six coastal states (Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam) having made competing claims on the Spratly Islands. Beijing, however, remains the main actor of this conflict since it claims sovereignty over all the islands, islets, rocks, sand banks or shoals dispersed in an area bounded by a famous U-shape curve that is deemed to include ipso facto, and ab initio, the ‘natural prolongation’ of the country. The strategic importance of the region can be traced to when China signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and adopted at Montego Bay on 10 December 1982 after nine years of negotiations, and ratified in 1996 two years after its entry into force. The Declaration made by Beijing at the time of ratification is not without interest and states that

Transforming Vietnam : A quest for improved efficiency and transparency in central government procurement

Khorana, S., Mishra, N., Kerr, W. A. (2014). Transforming Vietnam: a quest for improved efficiency and transparency in central government procurement. Policy and Politics, 42 (1), 109-129