商务英语教案2 Trade Protectionism alert.docVIP

Trade Protectionism Alert The world should heed warnings that barriers to trade are creeping up Jun 30th 2012 | from the print edition WHEN the financial crisis hit, the G20, grouping together countries that produce more than 85% of the world’s GDP, made all the right noises about trade. World leaders were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, when protectionism led to economic disaster; and their apparent success in ensuring that global markets stayed open has been a rare glimmer of light in the economic gloom. Yet even this optimism may be misplaced. As a report from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) warns this week, the barriers are creeping back up. On the face of it, all seems well. The G20 continues to preach the virtues of free trade each time it meets, most recently in Los Cabos in Mexico. Despite the deep suspicions between them, trade between the two emerging giants, China and India, is booming. Russia, the one jumbo emerging market that is not yet a member of the WTO, will join by July 23rd, after 19 years of accession talks; if the recent experience of China and Vietnam is any guide, foreign investment in Russia will jump as the market opens. Regional agreements are proliferating, too. In 2010 a trade deal covering close to 30% of the world’s population—the China-ASEAN Free-Trade Area—was struck. The European Union, itself the biggest free-trade area in terms of value, made side deals with Colombia and Peru earlier this month. Bigger EU deals, with India, Japan and perhaps America, are in the pipeline. And there is no doubt that trade has the potential to flourish in the years ahead. In a new long-run forecast published this week, HSBC predicts that world trade will grow by close to 90% over the next 15 years—advancing modestly at first, because of the euro crisis, then vigorously. In addition to top-down number-crunching, HSBC also looked at expectations from the bottom up. Views it gathered from thousands of small firms involved in impo