Global Value Chains: Unpacking the Issues of Concern for Developing Countries
“Global Value Chains” is a concept that strongly emerged in recent years especially at the WTO. But there are big differences of views on what it means and what it should and should not imply. The article below provides views of developing countries, which were presented at a South Centre/Ecuador event last year.
By Kinda Mohamadieh
The Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the WTO in cooperation with the South Centre organized a discussion session on Global Value Chains (GVCs), on the side of the Fourth Global Review of Aid for Trade held at the WTO between 8 and 10 July 2013. The session addressed issues related to GVCs and to the future of the multilateral trading system from the perspective of developing countries.
Speakers in the session included Ambassador Miguel Carbo Benites, Permanent Representative of Ecuador to the WTO, Ambassador Faizel Ismail, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the WTO, Mr. Manuel Montes, Senior Advisor on Finance and Development at the South Centre, and Ms. Rashmi Banga from the Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes at UNCTAD. The session was moderated by Ms. Aileen Kwa, Coordinator of the Trade for Development Programme at the South Centre.
Statement by Aileen Kwa
Aileen Kwa commenced the session by noting that the new narrative on GVCs is one focused on liberalization. While most countries are involved in GVCs in one way or another, they are not all linked in the same way nor have an equal status vis a vis GVCs.
Kwa added that the current discourse on GVCs by key proponents and by the WTO Secretariat is that developing countries should liberalise – in goods and services, and conclude a trade facilitation agreement. Some have also suggested that any restrictions on exports should be eliminated (e.g. export taxes on raw materials), Kwa added. According to this discourse, Kwa explained, these strategies would help developing countries more deeply integrate into GVCs as they can import more cheaply and thus export more competitively.
Kwa alerted participants that the picture on closer examination is not so simple. Not all players can equally gain from their participation in GVCs. Developing countries could become more integrated in GVCs, but the quality of their integration may not be of real benefit, Kwa explained.
Statement by Ambassador Miguel Carbo Benites
In his opening speech, Ambassador Miguel Carbo Benites of Ecuador underlined that “the GVCs-focused approach does not meet Ecuador´s main objective towards production transformation”. He explained that “GVCs tend to deepen the traditional scheme of international labor division”. While “transnational firms locate production in countries of origin of raw material or intermediate products as a way for them to achieve an efficient performance”, “this structure could hurt countries’ sovereign interests to manage their resources in an adequate way”, Benites added.
Ambassador Benites noted that countries with technologically advanced sectors take advantage of GVCs, while less developed countries such as Ecuador would less likely be able to benefit from these processes, and will be condemned to continue providing raw material. For this reason, he called for strengthening regional value chains “where the economic models have less economic and social asymmetries”. He added that regional value chains are a way to foster a region’s advantages from a complementary perspective in order to have a more dynamic integration between involved countries.
Ambassador Benites indicated that the Fourth Global Review of Aid for Trade presents GVCs as synonymous to growth and economic development, poverty reduction, capacity building, and global integration, regardless of the capabilities and constraints facing developing countries. Yet, he noted that “the analysis of market liberalization and value chains, does not consider the existing technological gaps between developed and developing countries”, which prevent the latter from effectively benefiting from the advantages of international trade. He explained that such propositions do not “provide an innovative framework for truly helping the economies of developing countries to develop and innovate beyond their current comparative advantage”.
Ecuador, like many developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) does not agree with the simple idea that free trade promotes growth and development, Ambassador Benites added, given that this approach does not reflect the economic, social, institutional, and structural differences among nations. It also does not reflect the principle of special and differential treatment that the WTO should uphold, he noted.
Ambassador Benites highlighted several points in regard to thinking about an alternative narrative for the multilateral trading system, including the need to support fair trade and trade capacity building, as well as ensuring good governance and better opportunities for participation within countries, and making international integration processes more participatory. In regard to aid-for-trade (AfT), he emphasized that Ecuador prioritizes the inclusion of traditionally excluded actors through supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with emphasis on food security and sovereignty, as well as market and export diversification.
Ambassador Benites concluded his remarks by noting that developing countries “need to adopt industrialization policies, support sustainable agricultural production and services’ development”. Accordingly, “the GVCs approach should be reconsidered in order to match with developing countries’ developmental needs”, and should contribute to more equitable participation for developing countries at the multilateral level by enabling value-added production.
Statement by Ambassador Faizel Ismail
Ambassador Faizel Ismail of South Africa commenced his presentation by noting the need to generate critical questions about the new trade narrative that is focused on GVCs. He highlighted that there are three main current approaches addressing GVCs; one is the technical approach that uses the narrative on GVCs as a way to update the methodology behind trade statistics; the second is the ideological perspective that situates the narrative on GVCs as basis for a ‘new Washington consensus’ and a new philosophy for framing research; while the third is a strategic approach with long term objectives.
On the technical front, international organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the WTO secretariat, and the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) are already working on updating trade statistics. Ambassador Ismail highlighted the OECD-WTO joint initiative on measuring trade in value-added, which indicates imbalances in trade statistics. For example, the US trade deficit with respect to China is reduced by more than 30 per cent when trade is measured, as it should be, in value-added and not in gross commercial value.
On the ideological front, Ambassador Ismail explained that a view of the world is being promoted that holds a lot of parallels with the set of ideas behind the Washington Consensus of the late 1980s and 1990s. This analysis of globalization focuses on highlighting the fragmentation of production processes and increasing concentration of trade in intermediate goods (making up around 60 percent of world trade) and trade in services, Ismail added. This narrative promotes the reduction of non-tariff barriers (NTBs), including services regulations and other border regulatory barriers, he noted. It also claims that trade facilitation and reduction of NTBs would lead to six times more gains at the household level and in terms of employment, compared to that resulting from reduction of tariffs. Within such an approach, the main prescription focuses on promoting a trade facilitation agreement at the WTO, liberalization of trade in services, and reduction of NTBs, Ismail underlined.
Ambassador Ismail reminded the participants that the strategic approach to the GVCs narrative kicked off with the collapse of the WTO Ministerial meeting in July 2008. In an article released in the Foreign Affairs Journal during June 2011, the United States Trade Representation (USTR) then, Susan Schwab, had expressed frustration with the multilateral negotiations and declared the WTO Doha Round dead. This has been followed by a spate of articles carrying the same argument, claiming that the WTO Doha round of negotiations does not work and calling for a ‘new pathway’ forward. Ambassador Ismail explained that the ‘new pathway’ being called for would include several key elements among which is the call for a new role by ‘emerging markets’ or big developing country Members of the WTO, built on the claim that a deal with these countries based on the special and differential treatment principle would not work. Ambassador Ismail added that the ‘new pathway’ calls for a move away from the ‘single undertaking’ approach under the WTO. He explained that proponents of such calls claim that the round is too big and that there is a need to address each issue-by-issue commencing with those parties willing to move forward based on plurilateral negotiations. Such an approach had been the basis for negotiations in the area of financial services under the WTO.
Under the same token, the negotiations of the US-EU FTA have been launched, which would make-up almost half of global output and one third of global trade. Under this approach, Ambassador Ismail explained, the argument is made that like-minded countries should work together to set rules and standards outside the WTO, to which other WTO members would later be called to join. Ismail referred to Wilkinson and Scott (2012) who had indicated that plurilaterals are “a shift backwards to old exclusive approaches” that were dominant before the Doha and Uruguay Rounds.
Recalling the history of the GVCs-focused narrative, Ambassador Ismail noted that Under-secretary of commerce in the Bush Administration, Grant Aldonas, was the prime mover of the need to create a new narrative on trade. In 2009, Aldonas argued that “there was a lack of compelling narrative that explains the nature of the global economy” in light of the “eroding public support for further trade liberalization globally”. Aldonas added that globalization has deepened whereby an increasing percentage of world trade now takes place within global enterprises and the broader reach of their supply chains, and noted that what matters is reducing costs, limiting risks, and ensuring quality and innovation, while tariffs and subsidies are less relevant. Grant Aldonas had argued that “trade facilitation is in fact where the money is, because it bears a more direct relationship to the factors that drive the private sector’s sourcing and investment decision”.
Ismail pointed at a similar line of research that has been produced by several international organizations like the WTO, OECD, World Bank, and G20 to promote GVCs and further liberalization.
Ambassador Ismail underlined that the argumentation promoting GVCs, liberalization, and ‘new pathways’ reflect a new trade narrative that is similar to the ‘Washington Consensus’. He highlighted that in the G20 Trade Ministers’ meeting in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico (19th of April 2012), OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria made the argument for “better and more compelling case for open markets”. Gurria noted that the emergence of GVCs as a new reality of international trade where goods are no longer manufactured in one country but are made in the world and the large share of intermediate goods in exports provide a compelling reason for countries to have more open trade policies. Angel Gurria added that “there is increasing evidence that comprehensive market opening benefits all of us, wherever we are”.
Furthermore, Ismail noted that the US narrative on the need for ‘new pathways’ was reflected in January 2013 by the US Deputy National Security Advisor for international economic affairs then, Michael Froman. Froman had claimed that it is difficult to see how to move forward on the multilateral level as long as countries that are largely competitive with the industrial nations hold to their view that they be treated as developing countries. In the same line, Froman had added that the focus in Geneva should be on ‘fresh issues’ like trade facilitation. When addressing free trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Froman had indicated the importance that these agreements set high standards that can eventually be extended to the multilateral level.
Yet, the idea that self-regulating markets based on removing barriers and allowing free flow of goods and services create automatic rise in welfare have been often critiqued starting from the work of Raul Prebisch to Joseph Stiglitz, Ismail stressed. Ambassador Ismail pointed to the lack of empirical and historical evidence to support the claim behind self-regulating markets, whereby the experience of developed countries show how they used state intervention to develop their economies.
Ambassador Ismail explained that the issues related to GVCs have been long debated among developing countries with a focus on the need for trade and industrial policies in order to achieve growth, break away from the commodities and middle-income trap, and move up from the bottom end of the commodity chain.
Ismail underlined that even some developing countries that moved up the value chain are still mainly processing. He added that research shows that developed countries that are trapped in the low end of the value chain in some sectors actively use policies to address that. Within this context, the shaping of GVCs has been associated with high pressures on major companies towards increasing concentration of economic activity. Higher levels of concentration and mergers were undertaken throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, in the US and EU particularly. This trend was undertaken in almost every major industrial and services sector, such as electronics, telecommunication, and the auto sector, highlighted Ismail. These companies took control of the lead part of the production process including innovation, research, and patents. They subcontracted other parts of the business to small firms in low cost countries. Ambassador Ismail explained that this was the path to promote the concept of GVCs, which reflects the move towards the disintegrated multinational company (MNC). At the same time financialization was pushed through deregulation of the financial sector, whereby manufacturing was marginalized.
Ambassador Ismail cautioned that the proliferation of the narrative on GVCs is part of a narrative on globalization that projects a certain strategy on the way trade negotiations and agreements, as well as global governance, and a number of national policies should take place. This evolving trade narrative includes analyses of the global economy and deepening globalization, changing forms of production, investment and trade, innovation, climate change and its implications for the world economy, economic growth and its trade effects, the relevance of the negotiations in the WTO under the Doha round, the need for alternative forms of trade negotiations including plurilaterals, and the need to change the definition of development and developing countries and their responsibilities in the system. Ismail stressed that this narrative crowds out other research and narratives from the scope of discussion and analysis.
These ideas are clearly intended to influence the direction and strategy of the new WTO Director General (DG) and the future of the WTO in the period post the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference held in Bali during December 2013. Ambassador Ismail noted that there has been a surge of interest in providing advice to the new WTO DG who took office in September 2013, not least by the past DG, Pascal Lamy, through the report entitled “The Future of Trade: The Challenges of Convergence” by the panel he convened to tackle defining the future of trade. Almost all the views expressed in this context argue that it is time to put the WTO Doha Round to rest and explore “new pathways”.
Ambassador Ismail concluded by highlighting that what is needed is an alternative vision that is based on fair trade, capacity building, balanced rules, and good governance that allows for opportunities to develop.
Statement by Manuel Montes
Manuel Montes of the South Centre reminded the participants that the current and seemingly sudden discovery of GVCs by the policy community is similar to the time when “big bang financial liberalization became all the rage in the mid-1980s and raged through the early 1990s, until the Asian financial crisis in 1997”. “As now for GVCs, financial liberalization was thought of as inevitable and a craze any developing country could not afford to miss” he added, despite the historical record of contagious international financial crises between the mid-19th century and early 20th century. Montes explained that then, as now for GVCs, leading policy institutions such as the OECD and the World Bank, argued for the potential benefits of financial liberalization based on a small set of studies (or theoretical models assuming full employment), supported by developed country governments and large multinational companies.
Montes noted that these prescriptions will unduly distort public policy priorities in developing countries. “What appears to be happening is that the set of standard policy prescriptions applying to trade liberalization are being resurrected on the occasion of the new discovery of GVCs. Because GVCs are by nature product, service, and even company specific there are very few general policy strategies to harness these for development interventions at the national level”, Montes added.
The 2013 World Investment report (UNCTAD 2013, p. xxiii) rhapsodizes on the development impact of GVCs on the basis of correlation noting that “there is a positive correlation between participation in GVCs and GDP per capita growth rates. Economies with the fastest growing GVC participation have GDP per capita growth rates some 2 percentage points above the average”. Montes stressed that “results from these kinds of correlation-based cross-country studies suffer from technical problems”, such as definition and measurement of variables, data heterogeneity across countries of vastly differing sizes, role of outliers and non-linearity. More important, Montes added, “often the direction of causation is reversed; that is, those already relatively successful and faster growing countries more easily snag parts of GVCs, instead of GVCs being an instrument of their development success”.
Montes explained that “while today’s GVCs could be more quantitatively sophisticated than the East India Company, the core of the economic policy issue then, as now, is the same: the distribution of value-added among the participants in the production process”. This distribution in turn determines the distribution of employment, economic growth and technological development among different territories, he added.
Montes noted that “while GVCs might be a new academic toy, the nature of their impact as an integrated production process has been seen before”. GVCs could be as exploitative within one country as they are across countries. He added that “national politics must contend with value chain inequities within national jurisdictions” and “we must ask whether the international system – such as the rules under the WTO or corporate codes of conduct or human rights treaties – are sufficiently equipped to deal with the inequitable aspects of GVCs”.
Within this context, the proper question should focus on how countries participate in GVCs, and not only on the choice between participating and not participating in value chains, Montes noted. It is thus very important to study the nature of GVCs, to understand their positive impacts and how these could be obtained, and their negative impacts and how these could be avoided, Montes underlined.
Montes added that the current effort to systematically gather data on value-added trade will intensify interest in the global distribution of value-added and the impacts of value chains. One example of a policy insight he raised is related to value-added in the interaction between aid-for-trade (A4T) and GVCs. Montes explained that “to the extent that A4T reduces the cost of international movement of goods and services, the gains could be mainly to the benefit of TNCs. Within GVCs, an intervention meant to support development could mainly be to the benefit of the private companies of the donor governments”.
For successfully participating in GVCs, Montes underlined three dimensions that developing countries must particularly monitor over time including: (1) export diversification, (2) value-added trends, and (3) GVC’s output and backward and forward linkages. Montes called for cautiousness of policy prescriptions supposedly inspired by the GVC’s literature, which claim that countries must (1) eschew investment measures, (2) renounce interest in infant industry protection, (3) liberalize imports including through rapid elimination of quantitative restrictions and lowering of import tariffs, (4) introduce iron-clad foreign investor protections, (5) accept international obligations on international sectoral liberalization, (6) liberalize services, and (7) embark on widespread trade facilitation efforts.
By nature, GVCs are not only organized around specific products, they are also led by a small set of easily identifiable international companies, Montes explained. “Because of these features, many of these policy prescriptions are at least unnecessary, and possibly harmful, if the object is to harness GVCs toward national development objectives”, Montes added. There are, of course, asymmetries in the bargaining power between developing country governments and transnational companies. Thus, while the standard policy prescriptions can facilitate the international operations of multinational companies, these suggestions are not traceable to the inherent nature of GVCs, Montes stressed.
Montes discussed the examples of import liberalization and trade facilitation.
In the context of discussing GVCs, the UNCTAD World Investment Report (2013, p. xxv) argues for import liberalization by underlining that: “protective trade policies can backfire if imports are crucial for export competitiveness”. Montes noted that this is actually an old argument previously used in structural adjustment programs, long before academics discovered GVCs. He added that there is nothing that will preclude a country from setting zero tariffs on critical imports to a GVC export. Governments could also consider subsidizing those other inputs into a GVC product whose domestic production they are promoting, in order to offset some of the cost effects of import tariffs. Montes underlined that countries must be able to set tariff rates to zero where imports are critical and be able to adjust them up or down in the sectors they seek to diversify.
Montes discussed trade facilitation, noting that it appears to be a tangential if not misplaced policy prescription of the GVC literature. He underlined that GVCs are product specific, and in the case of producer-led value chains, even brand and company specific. He highlighted that the UNCTAD World Investment Report (2013, p. xxv) uses the term “fine-sliced.” Thus, it is possible to accommodate the cost minimization needs of GVCs through export processing zones, special customs procedures or company-specific facilities (such as locating semiconductor assembly plants near the national airport), he explained.
Yet, “under trade facilitation a country facilitates all its trade, whether or not they sit in international value chains”, Montes added.
He added that a trade facilitation agreement constitutes a national obligation that would reshape the fiscal priorities of a country, since governments of all countries have limits on the size of their bureaucracies, for example. “A national trade facilitation strategy with the objective of snagging parts of value chains thus assumes away the product specific nature of GVCs”, added Montes. He referred to the case of the textile and clothing sector, noting that consolidation and concentration within the international textile and clothing value chain after the expiry of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing required for example facilitating trade for specific sectors and support services. In such a case, a national trade facilitation strategy is unnecessary.
Montes concluded by underlining that “it is very important to interpret the policy implications of GVCs based on what we know about the nature of GVCs and not to try to resurrect trade liberalization prescriptions not specifically related to GVCs”.
Statement by Rashmi Banga
Rashmi Banga from the Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes at UNCTAD pointed out that the economics behind GVCs is not new, but it reflects a new way of producing and trading. Banga added that “exports are no longer linked to higher value-addition or higher production; least developed and low income countries are either ‘locked-in’ at bottom of GVCs or ‘locked-out’”.
Banga explained that the share of manufacturing in GDP have decreased in various countries, while the share of manufacturing in total exports have increased. This trend was mainly seen in China. Such trends do not reflect an increase in industrialization and linkages to employment. It indicates that developing countries are either locked out of GVCs or locked at the bottom of GVCs.
Banga questioned why it is hard to gainfully link into GVCs and how to estimate and measure the gainful linkage in GVCs.
Banga highlighted that in May 2013, the OECD and WTO released new datasets on value-added in trade for the years 1995, 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2009, which covered 58 countries including 34 OECD countries, the 5 BRICS states of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, 8 newly industrialized Asian countries (NICs), and the category of the ‘rest of the world’ that comprises all developing countries excluding the BRICS and NICs. Banga explained that the share of total value-added created in GVCs is calculated through backward linkages – reflecting foreign value added in exports, and forward linkages – reflecting the value added in other countries’ exports.
In 2009, 67% of the share of value-added created by GVCs went to OECD countries, while the rest of the world was marginalized, Banga noted. The structure of the global gross exports includes a limited 14% foreign value-added by manufacturing, she added. Banga explained that although the hype on GVCs is based on the calculation that 80% of trade is taking place within GVCs; yet, if foreign value-added is what is valuable in GVCs, then the value within GVCs would be much more limited.
Banga pointed out that the distribution of gains is asymmetrically biased towards the upper end of GVCs, which is controlled by developed countries that have competitive advantage in providing services like design, branding, and marketing. Banga added that “corporate control of the production process is far more profitable than the manufacturing activity itself”. “The longer the value chains, the higher are the rents for the lead firms”, she explained.
Rashmi Banga discussed the objective of aid-for-trade (AfT), indicating that it should focus on enhancing the participation of recipient countries in global trade and accordingly should focus on ‘net value-added’ from GVCs. This requires calculating how much value-added a country is exporting and importing, and the ratio of forward linkages to backward linkages (i.e. how much value-added goes into exports of other countries and how much value-added a country imports). Banga noted that while some studies focus on highlighting that doubling AfT increases exports by 3.5% (Laurent and Razzaque, 2011), however the objective of AfT needs to shift away from merely increasing trade and reducing trading costs to enhancing the competitiveness of the countries so that they can gain in ‘net value-added’ terms. Banga added that the focus should shift from exports and market access constraints to addressing policy related constraints.
Furthermore, Banga called for more attention by AfT interventions to the services sector, with a focus on providing training programmes and developing skills of the workforce in the recipient countries, including research and development (R&D) services, banking and financial services, branding, packaging, and marketing services. These could bring tangible gains to the recipient countries in regard to their participation in GVCs, she underlined.
The chain of required capacities in GVCs includes 6 factors as Banga explained, including informed producers, technical innovation and research and development, skill development, adequate infrastructure and finance, appropriate institutions and domestic regulations, as well as market orientation and market intelligence.
Besides this, Banga stressed the role of domestic policies in maximizing gains from linking into GVCs. She explained that success stories reveal that several domestic policies are critical for maximizing gains, including local content requirement, domestic linkages through joint ventures and presence of domestic firms, developing capacities in services linked to manufacturing like design studios, marketing skills, and branding, strengthening domestic private sector, and strong domestic institutions and regulations.
Banga concluded by underlining that low-income countries have not been able to gainfully link into GVCs. She called for focusing on ‘creating more’ value-addition and not ‘more trade’, and directing AfT towards developing capacities, skills and soft infrastructure rather than import facilitation.
After the presentations, participants in the session raised several related points.
Mr. Fernando Rosales Lozada from the Permanent Mission of Bolivia to the United Nations highlighted the importance of considering the role of intellectual property (IP) in the GVCs scheme, which could contribute to limiting the potential of developing countries in upgrading within the value chain due to limits on access to technology and innovation.
Mr. Nadir Merah, head of the trade division at the African Union Commission highlighted that developing countries are in a period of strategizing and establishing their own developmental vision. Within this context the focus is not on increasing trading but on increasing value-addition. He added that development necessitates considering the position and growth of SMEs, which are the fundamental economic actors in developing countries. This requires removing non-tariff barriers (NTBs) with a focus on providing incentives and a business friendly environment for SMEs. Mr. Merah stressed the need for better and deeper role of the main economic actors in developing countries, including the private sector and civil society. He highlighted the push back on the WTO Doha round of negotiations, and the importance of drawing the attention of the new WTO DG that this approach is not accepted by developing countries. He added that developing countries’ priorities are focused on development, capacity building, better role of private sector and civil society, and fair trading rules.
Mr. Richard Kozul-Wright of UNCTAD noted that UNCTAD’s research distinguished between ‘trading more’ and ‘earning more’. In studying the case of the East Asian economies, UNCTAD differentiated between the experience of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and that of Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand that followed. Both groups of countries participated in GVCs noted Kozul Wright; yet the important difference lies in the way in which they participated and the nature of the private sector’s role. Kozul-Wright explained that the reason for higher benefits accrued by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan compared to Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand lies in the active role of the state in using a series of instruments that disciplined their private sector and made sure upgrading, reinvestment, and technological spillover was actually taking place. The spillover from MNCs and the contribution of the private sector to a development project does not take place in an automatic manner; there is need for a lot of policy interventions to make sure the spillover is achieved.
The session was concluded by remarks from the panelists and the moderator. Aileen Kwa noted that facing the new narrative on liberalization by proponents of GVCs requires elaborating an alternative development narrative, focused on increasing productive capacities and value addition. Broadening productive capacities necessitates state intervention, Kwa stressed.
Kwa added that the developing countries need to focus the discussions at the WTO on technology transfer, needed changes to the IP system, trade policy flexibility, special and differential treatment and revisiting of the whole implementation agenda, including local content and infant industry policies. She called for cautiousness on the AfT discourse, including the objectives and interests it serves.
Ambassador Benites called for the continuation in the exchange of ideas on GVCs and AfT, within an overall strategic approach by developing countries to face the liberalization-focused agenda.
Ambassador Ismail called for deepening the analysis of the new forces of globalization and forms it is taking. The view on the world has been biased to the point of view of lead firms in control of GVCs. Developing countries need their own research and policy design to address the objectives of developing countries.
In the same line, Rashmi Banga called for scaling up research and analysis with respect to GVCs.
Kinda Mohamadieh is Researcher of the South Centre.
