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South Asia is a region urgently seeking development, although it has failed in regional integration. It is the second least integrated region regarding the number of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and can thus be recognised as a missing bloc in the global multilateral system. This study aims to focus on South Asian FTAs and explores the problems of the inter-relations and compatibility between the systemic and regional trade systems.

The study proposes a framework to benchmark the compatibility of South Asian FTAs with WTO rules. Primary data from 2000 to 2020, including descriptive analyses of reports, legal text of the FTAs, official documents and factual presentations, have been collected and analysed through thematic analysis using the proposed framework.

The study finds that, although South Asian FTAs meet most of the WTO requirements, they are not progressing toward facilitating and promoting trade. Data from 2000 to 2020 show us that South Asian FTAs have not significantly impacted trade between themselves. The study argues that, although South Asian FTAs fulfil some benchmarks, they show only a lukewarm interest in contributing to the international trading system as building blocs. It is therefore recommended that the case of South Asian trade liberalisation must be understood contextually and be given careful and exclusive attention by the WTO.

As such, this study is the first to claim that South Asian FTAs are not fully compatible with the WTO rules. They remain a missing regional bloc in the multilateral system, rather than a building bloc or a stumbling bloc, delaying the region’s opportunity to develop as a region and within the larger system.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the impacts that the recent proliferation of private and overlapping standards is having in the trade of agricultural products from developing countries.

In a first stage industry experts in the Chilean fresh fruit trading industry were interviewed to understand the perceived impact that private standards are imposing in the industry. These interviews allowed to identify the market case study, table grapes, the landscape of private standards and their prevalence in different countries. In a second stage, a gravity trade model for trade in table grapes was estimated, with a focus on the more stringent countries identified by experts in the first stage.

We show evidence that the proliferation of private standards required by large European retailers has diverted trade away from more stringent countries that require more certifications (and into less stringent European markets). We also show that the costs of these additional certifications have been shared by trading partners, via an increase in direct sales, as opposed to consignment (the traditional marketing mode), which is associated with higher prices.

The impacts of the recent proliferation of private and overlapping standards in international trade needs to be better understood both by the legal and economic literature. While the use of private standards has been growing since the 1990s, there is a recent trend of large European retailers imposing their own and overlapping standards that needs to be better understood to inform policy.

While there is a thin literature on the impact of private standards on trade, most of this has studied the effects of the now de facto mandatory GlobalGAP certification. However, there is a recent trend by large European retailers of demanding their own private certifications, together with other already existing overlapping private standards. This study describes and analyzes the impacts of this rather new trend.

This study aims to find the impact of the trade war between the USA and China on Asian economies. Apart from macroeconomic variables associated with trade, this study explicitly creates a trade war scenario and trade war participant dummies. Using the neural network multilayer perceptron, this study checks for the causal linkages between the predictors and target output for the panel of Asian economies and the USA.

A conceptual model of the after effects of trade war in a quadrant is developed. Variables related to trade and tariffs are included in the study for a panel of 19 Asian economies. The feedforward structure of neural network analysis is used to identify strong and weak predictors of trade war.

The hidden layers of the multilayer perceptron reveal the inconsistency in linkages for the predictors’ services exports, tariff measures, anti-dumping measures, trade war scenario dummy with gross domestic product. The findings suggest that to curtail the impact of the trade war on Asian economies, predictors with neural evidence must be paid due weightage in policy determination and trade agreements.

The study applies a novel and little explored AI/ML technique of Neural Network analysis with training of 70% observations. The paper will provide opportunity for other researchers to explore techniques of AI/ML in trade studies.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has been negatively affecting international trade between countries; however, there is a lack of empirical studies on developing countries such as Vietnam. This article aims to investigate how the COVID-19 cases and related deaths and policy response by Vietnam and trading partners to the pandemic affect Vietnam's export activities.

The authors use the monthly trade data from the General Department of Vietnam Customs and employ the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) estimator to empirically investigate the effects of COVID-19 and policy response to the pandemic on Vietnam's exports at aggregate and sectoral levels over a 33-month period.

In the first year of the pandemic (January–December 2020) as well as the whole study period (January 2019–September 2021), trading partners' COVID-19 burden adversely affected Vietnam's aggregate exports, and the effect of COVID-19 deaths is significantly larger than that of COVID-19 cases. In the first year of the pandemic, estimates show a negative effect of Vietnam's COVID-19 cases on its exports, while no evidence reveals the impact of Vietnam's COVID-19 deaths. However, during the entire study period, there are remarkable adverse effects of Vietnam's COVID-19 deaths on its exports. The effect of the COVID-19 burden in Vietnam and in its trading partners differs significantly across major subsectors. In the first year, there is a positive role of government response to the pandemic by Vietnam and its trading partners in Vietnam's aggregate exports, while in the whole study period, only a positive effect of Vietnam's government response is found. Economic support and free trade agreements (FTAs) have a positive effect on Vietnam's exports. In the first year of the pandemic, Vietnam's export losses due to COVID-19 outweighed its export gains from the pandemic. However, Vietnam's exports have significantly improved over the nine months of 2021.

Efforts should aim to reduce the number of COVID-19 deaths rather than focus on reducing the number of COVID-19 cases. The application of stringency measures by both exporters and importers should be minimized, or at least those measures need to be combined with health methods, such as testing policy and contact tracing, short-term investment in healthcare and especially investments in vaccines. In addition, economic support, particularly debt relief, needs to be widely applied to assist firms, especially those involved in international trade. The expansion of FTA networks and diversifying export destinations may be helpful in maintaining production networks and export activities.

In the long-term period, the application of stringency measures by both exporters and importers should be minimized, or at least those measures need to be combined with health methods such as testing policy and contact tracing, short-term investment in healthcare and especially investments in vaccines. In addition, economic assistance, particularly debt relief, needs to be widely applied to assist firms, especially those involved in international trade activities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is among the first studies empirically investigating the impacts of COVID-19 and policy response to the pandemic on aggregate and sectoral exports from Vietnam. The paper also measures the absolute value of export gain and export loss due to the pandemic between Vietnam and trading countries.

Using panel data for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member states, the present study explored the role of RCEP negotiations on tourism development.

A dynamic econometric model, namely the panel autoregressive dynamic lag model (PARDL) has been used. To test for panel causality, Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality tests were used.

Through the use of a dynamic econometric model, namely the PARDL, the results show that the RCEP negotiations, growth rates, as well as international trade contribute towards tourism development. Furthermore, the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality tests confirm the existence of a bidirectional causal link between tourism development and RCEP negotiations. Finally, a unidirectional causal link is observed between tourism development and international trade.

This existing evidence on the topic seems to be very scant and limited to specific regions and particular regional trade agreements. This paper thus fills an important gap in the literature by advancing evidence about the effects of the RCEP on international tourism flows across member countries.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect and mechanism of the digital economy’s influence on the binary margin of agricultural exports.

Based on the theoretical analysis of the mechanism of the digital economy’s influence on the binary margin of agricultural exports, this study empirically examines the effect and mechanism of the digital economy’s influence on the binary margin of agricultural exports based on China’s customs export data from 2011 to 2016.

The relevant findings are threefold. (1) The digital economy significantly improves the binary margin of agricultural exports, and its effect on the intensive margin is stronger than that on the expansive margin. After the expansive margin is subdivided, the effects on the three sub-variables of the expansive margin are in the following order: old products exported to new markets > new products exported to old markets > new products exported to new markets. (2) The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the digital economy has a stronger role in promoting the binary margin of exports for enterprises in the eastern region, high-income countries as the destination of exports and state-owned enterprises. (3) Mechanism analysis shows that the digital economy promotes the binary margin of agricultural exports by reducing trade costs and intensifying market competition.

First, in terms of research perspective, although there are some studies on the impact of the digital economy on export trade in existing literature, the research objects mainly focus on manufacturing enterprises. In fact, agricultural trade is susceptible to natural conditions and seasonal factors, and countries may impose more SPS measures and TBT measures on agricultural trade due to risk considerations. The relationship between the digital economy and agricultural trade also has its own characteristics, but there are few research studies in this area. At present, only Liu and Gao (2022), based on the data of total imports and exports of different agricultural products from 2004 to 2018, have established a vector auto-regressive model to empirically analyse the heterogeneous dynamic impact of the digital economy on the trade volume of agricultural products. In addition, Ma and Guo (2023) conducted an empirical test on the total effect, regional heterogeneity and threshold effect of the digital economy on agricultural export trade based on China’s provincial panel data from 2011 to 2020. Therefore, under the new circumstances of continuous integration of digital technology and agriculture, this study interprets the impact effect and mechanism of the digital economy on the binary margin of agricultural exports from the perspective of the digital economy, providing new research perspectives and approaches for promoting the growth of agricultural exports. Second, in terms of theoretical analysis, the above studies have not been fully analysed in terms of the specific mechanism of the impact of the digital economy on agricultural exports. Based on the positive and negative characteristics of agricultural trade, this study introduces two kinds of roles into the theoretical analysis framework to comprehensively determine the trade impact effect of the digital economy. Third, in terms of research design, this study empirically examines the impact of the digital economy on the binary margin of agricultural products, passing a series of robustness tests and investigating the mediating roles of trade cost and market competition effects, producing an empirical basis for China to leverage the digital economy to promote the binary margin of agricultural exports.

Despite the enormous expectant opportunities from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), including creating a single continental market for goods and services, trade and investment, one key deterrent has remained fiercely unresolved due to failed trajectories with similar regional markets initiatives in the continent, and that is environmental uncertainty. To address this concern, this paper aims to develop a sustainability enabled-model to facilitate the adoption of AfCFTA under uncertain environment conditions to guide prospective investors and facilitators.

This study is anchored on quantitative research approach and positivists’ paradigm. Survey strategy has been used to collect data from 520 medium-sized firms across Ghana. Data analyses have been conducted with the using smart partial least squares version 3.3.3 analytical tool and structural equation modeling modality.

The findings have showed that institutionalization, supply chain integration, supply chain resilience and innovativeness have positive effects on AfCFTA adoption under uncertainty. Moreover, AfCFTA adoption provides mechanisms through which to attain sustainable supply chain performance. Meanwhile, environmental uncertainty negatively influences AfCFTA adoption, and weakens the relationships between the adoption and sustainability performance.

This paper has developed an integrated investment decision model to facilitate AfCFTA adoption under environmental uncertainty. It provides new insights into the African free market to guide policymakers, practitioners, academics and promoters of AfCFTA on sustainability initiatives that influence its adoption under uncertainty. Moreover, the new model, which serves as a strategic tool for decision-making, could be used to stimulate the ratification and the trade facilitation measures to build strong confidence in current and prospective investors.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) requires all members to avoid subsidy policies and financial measures that weaken sustainability in fishing and instead divert public spending in such a way that it is more beneficial to fisheries sectors. This paper aims to argue that the WTO fisheries subsidies rules can be considered as a mechanism not only for achieving fisheries sustainability but also for supporting food security in Indonesia.

The methodology of this study consists of descriptive and analytical legal research that identifies the relation between fisheries subsidies and food security policies in Indonesia.

Fisheries subsidies policies in Indonesia focus on government support for small-scale fishers not only to promote fishing sustainability and marine resource protection but also to improve their ability to participate in food security strategies.

The elimination of harmful fisheries subsidies could be regarded as a mechanism for not only preserving and sustaining marine resources but also achieving food security in other developing countries.

The author’s knowledge of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is valuable in elaborating a new paradigm on how the WTO is achieving SDG 14 (Life below Water) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) in parallel by analysing Indonesia’s efforts to implement the AFS while also allocating public spending to fisheries sectors to accommodate food security.

This paper aims to analyze relative contribution of intensive margin (IM) and extensive margin (EM) to growth in India's agricultural exports for the period 2001 to 2020. It also analyses the determinants of IM and EMs through a standard gravity model.

The study uses export data from United Nations Comtrade, which is accessed through World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) software. Data for the period 2001 to 2020 were compiled for analysis using the Harmonized System (HS) of commodity classification system at the six-digit level. This study decomposed the contribution of IM and EM in the growth of Indian agricultural trade by using Hummels and Klenow's approach. After performing the export decomposition analysis, the authors analyze the factors influencing IM and EM by using the Tobit regression model and Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) method of estimation.

The EM grew at 1.24% per annum, while the intensive margin (IM) increased by 0.23%. The contribution of growth at the EM increased from 58.8% in 2001 to 70.2% in 2020. Export growth along the IM was relatively high for animal products and agricultural raw materials, while growth at the EM was an important contributor to the export growth of horticultural and processed agricultural products. There was a positive and significant effect of the free trade agreement (FTA) on export margins.

More disaggregated commodity-specific studies on value chain analysis would provide valuable insights into the issues hindering exports and realizing the untapped export potential.

There is a scarcity of holistic and recent studies illustrating the role of IM and EMs in agricultural trade growth, covering a large number of commodities and geographies associated with Indian agricultural trade. The study would be helpful to the stakeholders in facilitating informed policy decisions.