MiniRC Project

IMEC’s inception at the G20 summit host country was fitting given the central role envisioned for India—which recently overtook China as the world’s most populous country and is forecast to be the third-largest consumer market by 2027—in anchoring this project’s feasibility. Placing New Delhi as a key node in IMEC is intended to cement its economic and diplomatic orientation towards the US-Europe camp and bolster its Indo-Pacific standing vis-a-vis Beijing. Additionally, IMEC represents an expansion of the US and India-led Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), further spearheading India’s assertive leadership on the global stage. Looking ahead, India could leverage IMEC to enhance its transit hub role, such as by facilitating streamlined trade from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and Europe. As a result, dark pools, along with high-frequency trading (HFT), are oft-criticized by those in the finance industry; some traders believe that these elements convey an unfair advantage to certain players in the stock market. Institutional investors may use an ATS to find counterparties for transactions, instead of trading large blocks of shares on national stock exchanges.

Broadly speaking, the IMEC aims to undercut Chinese influence stemming from its sponsorship of Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and infrastructure investments in the region. The corridor additionally deepens Israel’s participation with neighboring Arab countries within the framework of the Abraham Accords, and likewise builds upon cooperation within the year-old I2U2 alliance (composed of Israel, India, the United States, and the UAE). Amid signals of growing Saudi-Israel engagement ahead of a possible normalization of relations, IMEC allows the two countries to indirectly cooperate in a multilateral forum, as well as other states without formal Israel ties. In fostering unprecedented infrastructure development and economic partnerships, IMEC can serve to strengthen regional security and political stability throughout the Middle East.

The category winners will be announced at GTR’s annual awards dinner in London on May 2, 2019, which celebrates and commemorates the achievements of the world’s leading trade finance service providers of 2018. Issue-based ‘plurilateral’ agreements present a progressive, alternative framework to trade liberalization and global governance. A Single Point of Failure (SPoF) in FX post-trade messaging, created by decades of market consolidation, poses a significant threat to the entire global financial ecosystem, according to Andy Coyne, Founder of CobaltFX. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. The recent G20 summit in New Delhi witnessed the launch of a $20 billion India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), an ambitious multi-pronged network aiming to connect goods and services between Europe and Asia—via the Middle East—more sustainably and efficiently. G20 countries involved in this initiative will hold a follow-up meeting to develop an action plan with defined timetables for implementation.

The newly released EIF evaluation report provided key lessons and recommendations on leveraging additional resources for trade development in the LDCs. While success has been made in leveraging additional donor funding and further technical assistance, there have been more limited successes in mobilizing alternative sources of funding such as through philanthropic institutions, social impact investing, blended financing, and public-private partnerships (PPPs). The evaluation has particularly pointed to the potential of alternative sources of funding in efforts towards catalysing productive capacity at scale. Mission-driven business ATOs, first and foremost, are invested in a sustainable trade model.

A stock exchange is a heavily regulated marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers to trade listed securities. An ATS is an electronic venue that also brings buyers and sellers together; however, it does not have any regulatory responsibilities (though it is regulated by the SEC) and trades both listed and unlisted securities. They are known as multilateral trading facilities in Europe, ECNs, cross networks, and call networks.

Within this context, the G20-backed corridor seeks to constitute a geopolitical counterweight to China and its intercontinental Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while checking Russia’s interconnectivity aspirations. If you see a product or company claim that does not seem right, please email us at [email protected]. Help us stamp out fairwashing and support the companies that do support fair trade producers and play by the rules. Alternative trading organizations have Fair Trade at the core of their mission and activities, using it as a development tool to support disadvantaged producers and to reduce poverty, and combine their marketing with awareness-raising and campaigning. CFAT projects & publications focus on local, national, & global market-based approaches to alleviating poverty & promoting sustainable development…

These dedicated fair trade businesses, termed “Alternative Trading Organizations (ATOs),” have chosen to take the fair trade path with their business and address issues of social justice, economic equity and poverty in their supply chains. These ATOs are the backbone of the fair trade movement, with respect to both consumers and producers. They advocate for social responsibility in trade, build fair trade markets for small producers at the consumer level in the North, and are highly effective in helping producers in developing countries organize and reap the benefits of fair trade.

Your login credentials do not authorize you to access this content in the selected format. Access to this content in this format requires a current subscription or a prior purchase. In efforts to de-risk FX and deal with lack of competition in the world’s effectively largest market,  CobaltFX has launched its alternative post-trade messaging service – Trade Notification Network (TNN). According to Coyne, for far too long, the financial industry has grappled with lack of competition for FX post-trade messaging stemming from decades of industry consolidation.

• ATOs can be non-profit or for-profit mission-driven businesses; the former were the true fair trade pioneers, but the latter are making broader, deeper, longer-lasting impacts.
• Under Fair Trade USA’s current “Fair Trade for All” policy, products labeled with the “Fair Trade Certified Ingredients” seal need only contain 20% fair trade ingredients by non-water weight.
• Consumers otherwise may believe a fair trade seal on product packaging means that at least a majority of the product’s ingredients are certified fair trade.
• The Asian Development Bank Institute was established in 1997 in Tokyo, Japan, to help build capacity, skills, and knowledge related to poverty reduction and other areas that support long-term growth and competitiveness in developing economies in Asia and the Pacific.
• The savings gained by these corporations who set up plantations, as opposed to working with smallholders farming their own land, is really a price to be paid dearly by the workers’ communities and their children.

CFAT connects academic, policymaking, citizen, activist, business, & philanthropic communities through presentations, consultancies, & media forums… CFAT teams with graduate students in guiding individual research projects supported by related courses, seminars, & funding opportunities… The NARB, the appellate review body within the Advertising Self Regulatory Council (ASRC), is composed of top national advertisers, advertising agencies, academics and professionals, including members from Xerox Corporation, Pfizer, Morgan Stanley, Nestle Foods, Campbell Soup Company, L’Oreal USA and Johnson & Johnson. The NARB provides a peer-review group to adjudicate disputes within advertising, which is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). Regulators have stepped up enforcement actions against ATSs for infractions such as trading against customer order flow or making use of confidential customer trading information. These violations may be more common in ATSs than in national exchanges because ATSs face fewer regulations.

Even if a large agribusiness pays fair wages at their plantations, the trade model cannot be called fair trade if it is not sustainable and does not last. The savings gained by these corporations who set up plantations, as opposed to working with smallholders farming their own land, is really a price to be paid dearly by the workers’ communities and their children. It also suggests possible areas where new plurilateral agreements—whether single or multiple issue-based—can be developed. The paper highlights the importance of plurilateral agreements as a mechanism complementary to the WTO and FTAs in enhancing the governance of the global trade system, and outlines conditions that need to be fulfilled to address the needs of developing countries. Alongside the practical economic and infrastructure benefits for the involved regions, IMEC aims to strengthen United States and EU leadership based on multilateral cooperation and prosperity across Eurasia and boost global supply chain solutions.

More recently, Vanuatu leveraged USD 845,000 from the World Bank and Australia to support their Electronic Single Window project implemented by UNCTAD. Official Development Assistance (ODA) has remained a key source of financing for many LDCs rising to about USD 33 billion in 2021 according to preliminary data from the OECD. OECD statistics on Aid for Trade drawn from the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) shows Aid for Trade disbursements increased on an average of 6.6% per year since 2006. Most recent developments such as global conflicts may have impacts on Aid for Trade, preliminary indications also point to a re-alignment of priorities that might have implications on Aid for Trade disbursements in the short to medium term at least. Join us for this live discussion to explore ways of doing business differently through alternative models of trade, sharing value and incentivising innovation.

Most ATSs are registered as broker-dealers rather than exchanges and focus on finding counterparties for transactions. Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master’s in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have continued to struggle with the challenges that led to the development of the category over 50 years ago. Periods of economic growth have been generally insufficient to address the challenges of long-term income divergence with the rest of the world. With a share of global trade which continues to hover around 1 per cent, the economic effects of the Online Marketing Trading COVID-19 pandemic have further dampened prospects for some convergence with the rest of the world. The added challenge of the climate crisis has amplified vulnerabilities for many LDCs that are at the intersection of climate and economic impacts. Within the Middle East, IMEC advances regional connectivity and economic cooperation, as well as ties to the US and its European allies.

RAND is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. The Asian Development Bank Institute was established in 1997 in Tokyo, Japan, to help build capacity, skills, and knowledge related to poverty reduction and other areas that support long-term growth and competitiveness in developing economies in Asia and the Pacific. “The FX market, by sheer trading volume, is amongst the world’s largest markets, making the need for comprehensive solutions even more pressing. Imagine if banks’ only messaging network all of a sudden came to a halt amid FX trading; this could stop trading completely,” he said. In Vanuatu, the EIF partnered with the government of New Zealand, which invested USD 15.5 million to rebuild their tourism infrastructure following Cyclone Pam in 2015.