This thesis concerns the environment of Foreign Direct Investment in Brazil with the purpose of determining the biggest hurdles and incentives for establishing a business in the country. The study is analysed in the context of the Diamond model of national wealth, first introduced by Porter (1990) and is based on secondary source research and data. The main motives are outlined as resource-seeking, market-seeking and non-marketable asset seeking and assessed by using a number of determinants that is commonly used when investing whether a country is competitive in role of attracting investments from abroad. Found was that Brazil has a competitive advantage in terms of market size and a population growing purchasing powers that stems from recent economic growth. The main obstacle for Brazil is now to regain economic stability since the country currently is undergoing recession and invest in infrastructure which is currently one of the largest barrier for foreign (and domestic) businesses.

A la faveur de la réforme portuaire intervenue au Cameroun à la fin de la décennie 1990, les pouvoirs publics espéraient que les délais idéaux de passage portuaire des marchandises à l’importation devraient être de 7 et de 2 jours ouvrés à l’exportation dans le moyen terme. Pour tenir compte des difficultés liées à la phase d’expérimentation de la réforme durant la période transitoire, les délais de franchise jugés plus ou moins atteignables durant lesquels les marchandises ne devraient pas être passibles des surestaries et/ou des frais de stationnement, ont été fixés à court terme à 11 et 7 jours, respectivement à l’importation et à l’exportation. Au troisième trimestre de l’année 2017, l’analyse des chiffres présentés par le CONAFE démontre que la moyenne de ces délais oscille respectivement entre 16 et 18 jours pour l’importation des conteneurs et entre 16 et 20 jours, pour l’importation des véhicules. Plus précisément, 63, 54 et 57% de marchandises conteneurisées à l’importation, ont payé des pénalités respectives aux trois premiers trimestres de l’année 2017. Par ailleurs, d’une part, 89, 84, et 86% et d’autre part, 54, 49 et 67% des véhicules importés, ont payé les mêmes pénalités durant les mêmes intervalles respectifs pendant leur séjour aux parcs SOCOMAR et TMFD. La situation est presque la même dans les ports des autres États de la sous-région CEMAC. Les importateurs de marchandises en transit rencontrent les mêmes difficultés. Une étude comparative présente des statistiques plus ou moins laudatrices dans d’autres sous-régions du monde, notamment européennes. Dans un tel contexte qui n’est pas propre à la CEMAC, il est nécessaire de revoir les différentes procédures et mesures prescrites pour l’acheminement des marchandises. A ce défi, logistique viennent s’ajouter les problématiques liées aux instruments juridiques inapplicables, ou qui ont montré leurs limites à cause des dissensions enregistrées lors de leur mise en œuvre. Particulièrement dans la CEMAC, la reforme sur les procédures de transport et des échanges, la législation ainsi que la coordination des divers intervenants de la chaîne des transports sont une urgence. Il est clair qu’il y a aussi un manque réel d’infrastructures et des moyens tant matériels que financiers. A cela s’ajoutent des questions de gouvernance, de prévisibilité juridique, les risques liés aux transports, ainsi que la nécessité de protéger l’environnement. Au terme de l’analyse, il est ressorti que de nombreux efforts ont été fournis. Il reste que les États de la CEMAC ne peuvent véritablement faciliter leurs échanges qu’en tirant profit des instruments internationaux. En plus des textes existants, certaines dispositions novatrices des RR et de l’AFE doivent permettre de résoudre les problématiques liées aux rapports contractuels, aux délais, aux coûts de passage et à la livraison des marchandises. Sans doute, c’est ce qui a justifié l’appropriation presque servile du premier texte par le législateur communautaire et la ratification du second par certains États. Mais pour tirer le meilleur parti de ces instruments, leur adoption et leur mise en œuvre doivent tenir compte du contexte économique de la sous-région. Si la participation effective aux échanges est un signe de puissance, leur politique d’appropriation communautaire ou d’adoption devraient tenir compte du contexte économique sous-régional. / In the wake of the port reform that took place in Cameroon at the end of the 1990s, the public authorities hoped that the ideal transit times for goods to be imported should be 7 and 2 working days for export in the medium term. In order to take into account the difficulties associated with the experimental phase of the reform during the transitional period, the duty periods considered more or less attainable during which the goods should not be liable to demurrage and / or parking fees, were fixed at short term at 11 and 7 days, respectively for import and export. In the third quarter of 2017, the analysis of the figures presented by CONAFE shows that the average of these delays varies respectively between 16 and 18 days for the importation of the containers and between 16 and 20 days, for the importation of the vehicles. Specifically, 63%, 54% and 57% of containerized import goods paid penalties in the first three quarters of 2017. On one hand, 89%, 84% and 86% and on the other hand, 54, 49 and 67% of the imported vehicles paid the same penalties during the same intervals during their stay at SOCOMAR and TMFD. The situation is almost the same in the ports of the other states of the CEMAC sub-region. Importers of goods in transit face the same difficulties. A comparative study presents more or less laudatory statistics in other sub-regions of the world, notably in Europe. In such a context that is not unique to CEMAC, it is necessary to review the different procedures and measures prescribed for the movement of goods. In addition to the logistical challenge, there are also issues related to legal instruments that are inapplicable or that have shown their limits because of the dissensions recorded during their implementation. Particularly in the CEMAC, the reform of the transport and trade procedures, the legislation as well as the coordination of the various actors of the transport chain are an emergency. It is clear that there is also a real lack of infrastructure and both material and financial means. Added to this are issues of governance, legal predictability, transportation risks, and the need to protect the environment. At the end of the analysis, it emerged that many efforts have been made. The fact remains that the CEMAC States can only genuinely facilitate their trade by taking advantage of international instruments. In addition to the existing texts, certain innovative provisions of the Rotterdam Rules and the Trade Facilitation Agreement must make it possible to solve the problems related to the contractual relations, the deadlines, the costs of passage and the delivery of the goods. No doubt that is what justified the almost servile appropriation of the first text by the Community legislator and the ratification of the second by certain States. But to make the most of these instruments, their adoption and implementation must take into account the economic context of the sub-region. If effective participation in trade is a sign of power, their policy of community ownership or adoption should take into account the sub-regional economic context.

Magister Legum - LLM

Since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007, members of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) have sought to strengthen ASEAN's regional economies through a digital trade project known as the ASEAN Single Window (ASW). The purpose of this case study was to explore the business strategies that multinational organizational leaders used to overcome business barriers while implementing ASEAN partnership contracts and ASW region-wide projects. This study may be unique in that, at the time of this research, there was no published study in which researchers had explored a single window for a vast, multination geographical region. Data collection was done via in-depth interviews with ASW executives, studying online ASW-related conferences, and examining relevant strategic documents. A 6-phase thematic analysis process based on methodological triangulation corroborated the data and addressed construct validity through data familiarization, generating initial coding, categorizing codes and searching for themes, breaking codes into subcategories, data reduction and defining and naming themes, and report generation. The 4 strategic themes that emerged were business models and processes, public-private partnerships, project management methodologies, and overlapping themes. The findings offer insights into ways to overcome the ASW's constraints and barriers. These strategic themes developed into a list of critical success factors and a summary list of principle business strategies and best practices. The implication for social change is a regionally collaborative trading environment providing potential economic options that not only impede the deterioration of the regional social fabric but support new opportunities such as trade liberalization and economic stability.

<p>This dissertation consists of three major chapters. The first chapter is dedicated to testing a novel gravity model of international trade, while the last two chapters explore cross-country commitment and implementation behavior within the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement. </p> <p><strong>Chapter 1:</strong> I test a novel theoretical gravity model of international trade on firm-level export data from Colombia in 2018. The model assumes a power law relationship between trade flows and distance, with the distance elasticity resulting from two dynamic processes: firm-export growth captured in a Pareto distribution; and the growth of the distance over which those exports are sold. Although the model has been shown to work well in French data, its usefulness for interpreting data from other countries remains unexplored. I find evidence that the model fails in Colombia because some large firms contradict its assumptions by exhibiting shorter export distances compared to smaller firms in the sample. I hypothesize that these large firms are branches of foreign multinational corporations (MNCs). MNCs’ headquarters constraint the export growth of its affiliates as well as the markets they reach. While I cannot prove firms’ MNC affiliation, I use export sophistication as an imperfect metric to reflect MNC presence. When MNC affiliates are excluded from the sample, firm export distance rises faster with firm size, leading to improved predictions of the distance elasticity of trade in Colombia by the model. These findings have implications not only for the tested model but also for other theories that explain gravity in international trade through firm-level behavior.</p> <p><strong>Chapter 2:</strong> We use a new database of commitments made during the process of ratifying the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) to study variation in countries’ commitment behavior. The TFA is a novel World Trade Organization agreement because it allows developing countries to select commitments from a menu of best practices in trade facilitation, rather than to consent, or not, to a comprehensive package of negotiated commitments. The operation of this <em>à la carte</em> approach to concluding trade agreements is worthy of study in its own right, but the commitment data also offer a high-level description of progress in an international effort to improve border management procedures around the globe. Our study uses data on TFA commitments to describe progress across subcomponents of the agreement. A regression model shows that the number of Type A trade facilitation commitments that a country made in the TFA ratification process depends on its level of development, population size, ability to control corruption, and foreign aid received to support trade facilitation. We use multidimensional scaling techniques to study differences in the content of national commitment bundles. This approach demonstrates that variation in the content of countries’ commitments is closely tied to the number of commitments made.</p> <p><strong>Chapter 3:</strong> This chapter examines the implementation progress of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) from 2019 to 2023. The TFA, which is the latest World Trade Organization agreement, came into force in 2017. In its novelty, it allows developing countries to set their own implementation schedule and adjust it if needed. This flexibility aligns implementation requirements with the capabilities of signatory countries, but introduces uncertainties in achieving complete global implementation and fully realizing the potential benefits of the agreement. Using data on the notified implementation dates for each measure of the TFA, this study describes the progress made in implementing different subcomponents of the agreement over a period of five years. A regression analysis suggests that the annual rate of progress towards achieving full TFA implementation does not vary based on country characteristics such as GDP per capita, population size, or landlocked status. Assuming that the tendency at which countries implement measures remains unchanged, I project that 95% of developing countries will achieve 95% TFA implementation between the years 2036 and 2047.</p>

A intensificação do comércio internacional e a liberalização comercial ocorrida nos últimos anos têm aumentado a importância relativa dos procedimentos de fronteira como determinante dos custos de comercialização associados ao comércio internacional. Uma parcela desses custos está associada a atrasos portuários, a ausência de transparência na aplicação de regras, a burocracia e a procedimentos aduaneiros desatualizados. Nesse contexto, a facilitação de comércio começou a receber destaque no cenário político internacional. Entendida como medidas que reduzem os custos de comercialização internacional, a facilitação de comércio tornou-se tópico de discussão na OMC a partir da conferência Ministerial de Cingapura de 1996. Estudos relacionados à facilitação de comércio, principalmente estudos que abrangem o Brasil e seus parceiros comerciais ainda são raros. O presente estudo tencionou contribuir nessa direção avaliando os efeitos da facilitação de comércio, definida em termos da transparência da política comercial, sobre o padrão de comércio bilateral de um conjunto de 43 países que inclui o Brasil e alguns de seus principais parceiros comerciais. Para isso, são descritas primeiramente as relações entre a facilitação de comércio, transparência da política comercial e os fluxos comerciais. A idéia central é que a reforma da política comercial que promova a transparência, através de maior previsibilidade e simplificação, pode contribuir para a redução dos custos de comercialização associados ao comércio internacional e ampliar os fluxos de comércio entre os países. A partir de indicadores de facilitação de comércio relacionados à transparência da política comercial são construídos, para cada país da amostra, três índices de transparência utilizando a técnica estatística multivariada da análise fatorial: dois índices de transparência nas importações e um índice de transparência nas exportações. A relação desses índices com o padrão de comércio bilateral entre os países é estimada utilizando um modelo gravitacional construído com dados de comércio bilateral dos 43 países desagregados em Capítulos do Sistema Harmonizado. O modelo gravitacional é estimado através do modelo de efeitos fixos e os resultados indicam que os índices de transparência nas importações e o índice de transparência nas exportações estão positivamente associados com o comércio bilateral e são estatisticamente significativos. Dessa maneira, a introdução de reformas nas áreas de facilitação de comércio, que levariam a um incremento relativo dos índices de transparência, pode resultar na ampliação do comércio entre os países. / The intensification of international trade and the trade liberalization that occurred in the last years have increased the relative importance of border procedures as a determinant of trade costs associated to international trade. These costs are partly associated to delay in port operations, lack of transparency in rule applications, bureaucracy and outdated customs procedures. In this context, trade facilitation became increasingly important in the international political scenario. Trade facilitation is interpreted as measures that reduce international trade costs and started to be discussed at the WTO from the Singapore ministerial conference of 1996. Studies on trade facilitation, particularly including Brazilian and trade partner issues, are still scarce, therefore the present study aims to contribute in this direction evaluating the effects of trade facilitation, defined as the transparency of trade policy. It is applied to the pattern of bilateral trade of a 43 - country set including Brazil and some of its major trade partners. For that purpose, the relations between trade facilitation, transparency of trade policy and trade flows are firstly described. The central idea is that the trade policy reform that promotes transparency through greater predictability and simplification can contribute to reduce trade costs associated with international trade and expand trade flows between countries. Based on trade facilitation indicators related to trade policy, three transparency indexes are constructed for each country of the sample, using multivariate statistics and factor analysis: two transparency indexes for imports and one transparency index for exports. The relation of these indexes with the bilateral trade pattern between countries is estimated using a gravity model constructed with bilateral trade data of the 43 countries disaggregated in chapters of the Harmonized System. The gravity model is estimated by a fixed effects model and the results indicate that the transparency indexes for imports and exports are positively associated with bilateral trade and are statistically significant. Therefore, reforms in trade facilitation areas that would lead to a relative increase of the transparency index can be an way to expand trade between the countries.

A intensificação do comércio internacional e a liberalização comercial ocorrida nos últimos anos têm aumentado a importância relativa dos procedimentos de fronteira como determinante dos custos de comercialização associados ao comércio internacional. Uma parcela desses custos está associada a atrasos portuários, a ausência de transparência na aplicação de regras, a burocracia e a procedimentos aduaneiros desatualizados. Nesse contexto, a facilitação de comércio começou a receber destaque no cenário político internacional. Entendida como medidas que reduzem os custos de comercialização internacional, a facilitação de comércio tornou-se tópico de discussão na OMC a partir da conferência Ministerial de Cingapura de 1996. Estudos relacionados à facilitação de comércio, principalmente estudos que abrangem o Brasil e seus parceiros comerciais ainda são raros. O presente estudo tencionou contribuir nessa direção avaliando os efeitos da facilitação de comércio, definida em termos da transparência da política comercial, sobre o padrão de comércio bilateral de um conjunto de 43 países que inclui o Brasil e alguns de seus principais parceiros comerciais. Para isso, são descritas primeiramente as relações entre a facilitação de comércio, transparência da política comercial e os fluxos comerciais. A idéia central é que a reforma da política comercial que promova a transparência, através de maior previsibilidade e simplificação, pode contribuir para a redução dos custos de comercialização associados ao comércio internacional e ampliar os fluxos de comércio entre os países. A partir de indicadores de facilitação de comércio relacionados à transparência da política comercial são construídos, para cada país da amostra, três índices de transparência utilizando a técnica estatística multivariada da análise fatorial: dois índices de transparência nas importações e um índice de transparência nas exportações. A relação desses índices com o padrão de comércio bilateral entre os países é estimada utilizando um modelo gravitacional construído com dados de comércio bilateral dos 43 países desagregados em Capítulos do Sistema Harmonizado. O modelo gravitacional é estimado através do modelo de efeitos fixos e os resultados indicam que os índices de transparência nas importações e o índice de transparência nas exportações estão positivamente associados com o comércio bilateral e são estatisticamente significativos. Dessa maneira, a introdução de reformas nas áreas de facilitação de comércio, que levariam a um incremento relativo dos índices de transparência, pode resultar na ampliação do comércio entre os países. / The intensification of international trade and the trade liberalization that occurred in the last years have increased the relative importance of border procedures as a determinant of trade costs associated to international trade. These costs are partly associated to delay in port operations, lack of transparency in rule applications, bureaucracy and outdated customs procedures. In this context, trade facilitation became increasingly important in the international political scenario. Trade facilitation is interpreted as measures that reduce international trade costs and started to be discussed at the WTO from the Singapore ministerial conference of 1996. Studies on trade facilitation, particularly including Brazilian and trade partner issues, are still scarce, therefore the present study aims to contribute in this direction evaluating the effects of trade facilitation, defined as the transparency of trade policy. It is applied to the pattern of bilateral trade of a 43 - country set including Brazil and some of its major trade partners. For that purpose, the relations between trade facilitation, transparency of trade policy and trade flows are firstly described. The central idea is that the trade policy reform that promotes transparency through greater predictability and simplification can contribute to reduce trade costs associated with international trade and expand trade flows between countries. Based on trade facilitation indicators related to trade policy, three transparency indexes are constructed for each country of the sample, using multivariate statistics and factor analysis: two transparency indexes for imports and one transparency index for exports. The relation of these indexes with the bilateral trade pattern between countries is estimated using a gravity model constructed with bilateral trade data of the 43 countries disaggregated in chapters of the Harmonized System. The gravity model is estimated by a fixed effects model and the results indicate that the transparency indexes for imports and exports are positively associated with bilateral trade and are statistically significant. Therefore, reforms in trade facilitation areas that would lead to a relative increase of the transparency index can be an way to expand trade between the countries.

Magister Legum - LLM / Trade has been widely accepted as an important tool in spearheading economic growth and development. In many different parts of the world, countries have alleviated poverty and economically prospered through effective trade. Despite the efforts to dismantle trade restrictions and create a common market, the problem remains that of African disintegrated markets which then lead to poor intra-African trade. There is therefore the need to use intra-African trade as an instrument that effectively serve in the attainment of rapid and sustainable social and economic development. The aim of this study is to therefore determine whether the solution to increasing intra-African trade can be found in the Tripartite FTA.

In the last decade, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members have paid little attention to the WTO rulemaking processes and their functioning. Two high-levels commissions, as well as some scholars, have identified several areas of concerns with respect to the WTO rulemaking processes. Some of them have put forth proposals for their reform. However, the WTO has not proceeded with or even reflected upon any major reforms affecting the functioning of its rulemaking processes. The lack of attention by the Members regarding these issues motivated the focus of this thesis on the legitimacy of the WTO rulemaking processes. The principal research question of this thesis is: Are the WTO rulemaking processes legitimate? To what degree? Answering this first research question necessarily leads to a secondary one: How can the WTO rulemaking processes be assessed? This thesis recognizes that there is no uniform way for assessing legitimacy both at the national and international levels. It borrows from David Beetham's legitimacy conception and assesses the legitimacy of the WTO rulemaking processes from the standpoint of WTO Members. It builds a theoretical framework for assessing the legitimacy of the rulemaking processes on the basis of Members' conception of the WTO and the concepts of input and output legitimacy that have been frequently applied to the WTO and from which are derived four legitimacy criteria: legality, effectiveness, representativeness and openness. This thesis furthermore advances that legitimacy can only be effectively assessed as a matter of degree and, therefore, develops a multidimensional interval scale to allow a precise measurement of the four criteria of legitimacy as applied to the WTO rulemaking processes. In order to assess the rulemaking processes, it uses three cases that have led to the adoption of new rules or agreements. In fact, legitimacy matters even more for the processes that led to actual rules due to the fact that they generate binding outcomes. Such a methodology based on case studies arguably provides a more accurate representation of the WTO rulemaking processes than the general processes that have been described in the secondary literature.

國際貿易是經濟發展的重要手段之一，然而無論在開發中或已開發國家，貿易商皆面臨貿易流程的繁文縟節。隨著各國的關稅逐漸降低，業者進行國際貿易時的貿易成本甚至已超過關稅成本。因此，有望透過貿易便捷化來簡化貿易程序，降低貿易成本。 　近年來，兩岸貿易依存度日益提高，中國大陸更成為台灣最大的出口市場。兩岸各自推動的貿易便捷化皆獲得相當成效，然法規不透明為目前中國大陸對台最嚴重之非關稅障礙，而法規透明化又是貿易便捷化工作的其中一環，因此法規透明化為當前亟需進行之貿易便捷化工作。 由於兩岸皆為世界貿易組織會員，且貿易便捷化已納入WTO的談判架構，而GATT 1994第十條（貿易法令之公布與施行）亦揭示法規透明化乃世界貿易組織協定重要原則，因此本文檢視兩岸的法規公布、措施通知、提供草案評論、回覆諮詢、正當程序和司法救濟等透明化之世界貿易組織義務，作為兩岸法規透明化程度的衡量指標。 透明化雖然是內部即可進行之工作，但由於透明化的重要性不受中國大陸重視，因此其透明化成效有限。為解決此問題，有待建立法規透明化的兩岸合作機制，而該機制之完善將使兩岸業者受惠，雙方政府基於互惠立場，會使兩岸業者獲得更大幅公開的政府資訊，所適用行政程序中的相關權利更受到保障。 / International trade is important to economics, while there are plenty of red tape still existing in moving goods across borders, whether in developing or development countries. Following the decreasing of tariff barriers, trade costs to traders are much more than tariff costs. Therefore, it is necessary to cut down the trade cost by trade facilitation. Recently, cross-strait trade relationship is closer and Mainland China has become the biggest trade partner of Taiwan. The cross-strait development of trade facilitation is significant, but the greatest trade barrier between is non-transparency. Since transparency of trade policy is part of trade facilitation programs, the authorities have to improve the transparency of trade policies. China and Taiwan are the members of the WTO, and WTO Members agreed to launch negotiations on trade facilitation several years ago. Besides, Article X of the GATT 1994 provides that transparency is also the principle of the WTO Agreements. Transparency obligations in WTO include publication of trade policies, notification on measures, providing the opportunity for prior comments, responding to requests for information, due process of administrative procedures and ensuring the right of review and appeal. This article aims at assessing the compliance of China and Taiwan with WTO obligations in transparency. Because the importance of transparency, which can be improved unilaterally, is neglected by China, efforts paid to this transparency issue limited. To solve this problem, it is necessary to establish a cross-strait cooperation mechanism that benefits the traders in both China and Taiwan. Accordingly, the authorities would take reciprocal actions on opening information of the government and ensuring the rights of administrative procedures in a larger extent.