RELEASE EMBARGO DATE: April 22, 2014 at 9:00 AM

Panel: WTO vs. Mega FTAs (GB1)
Date/Time: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 / 16:00-17:15
Talking Points for: Hosuk Lee, European Centre for International Political Economy

– Major regional trade agreements and FTAs are the main vehicles of trade liberalisation. They fulfil industrial and security objectives in the current political cycle, and are too big to fail.

– The WTO system failed, as it oversold the Doha round that does not deal with current trade issues: especially on opening up emerging markets and services. Yet WTO still plays a role as a dispute system and a least common denominator.

– Key benefits (and impediments) of TTIP, TPP are non-WTO trade issues, especially regulatory cooperation. Yet converging regulatory systems, even between like-minded like EU/US, has proven to be near-impossible.

– China’s entry in the trading system, without any claims to leadership, is the biggest question of global economic governance. It has also led to a domestic policy failure, and force it to unilateral market liberalisation.