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China’s unprecedented emergence as an economic and political power has created a new geopolitical economy for semi-industrialised and developing economies in Southeast Asia. This paper examines China’s trade relationships with Thailand and Indonesia using the concepts of uneven and combined development (UCD) and unequal exchange. The mass of surplus value obtained through China’s trade with the developed economies has flowed into the considerable expansion in China’s imports from developing countries since 2000. China has maintained a consistent trade deficit with the latter. While the developing countries concerned have benefitted from this set of relationships, the extent to which they have done so has been determined by national strategies. In countries like Thailand – where manufacturing capital and a significant working class has emerged – exports expanded on the basis of mutually advantageous technologically and skills intensive goods. These are produced with a similar organic composition of capital as in China. The result has been a further consolidation of the hegemony of manufacturing capital. Indonesia, however, has a political system and economy long dominated by resource exploitation linked fractions of capital. The result has been a surge in primary goods exports. The current commodity price cycle has meant these goods exchange at prices above their value. The current looming price correction, however, may have negative repercussions. In the meantime, the concentration in raw materials exports is helping to prevent the emergence of a circuit of productive capital in manufacturing. The evidence from these contrasting cases suggests that the degree to which developing economies can benefit from China’s own historically unparalleled combined development remains highly contingent on the strength of the combined development possibilities and efforts within these other national social formations. Above all, there is the degree to which manufacturing sectors of capital can obtain hegemony.

Ports have played an important role in the history of Indian trade as they had always been the poles of international trade and commerce since colonial times. They had also acted as a catalyst for the economic development of the nations from historic times till now. Despite the tremendous growth of various other major modes of transport systems such as railways, roadways in case of land routes for internal trade and airways for external trade, ports still continue to coexist with them mainly in sea-borne exchange of goods both in internal as well as in external trade of India. This chapter studies the impact of globalization on economic development of India through the maritime trade growth at Major ports, being the sustainable transport mode, during the period (1980–2020). Using econometric and statistical tools it observes that Major ports have played a significant role in growth of sustainable transport and trade development within India, since the colonial times till date. Not only that, positive impact of globalization, (in terms of growth of trade globalization index) also have resulted both in increased volume of total and overseas trade performance in overall growth of international trade at Major ports of India, thus, reflecting higher economic development.

The aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance of sustainable development, especially its environmental component in trade and retail sector of the Republic of Serbia. Due to a number of factors, such as increased consumer awareness on the importance of eco-products, new statutory and legal regulations, and increased competition, retail chains are increasingly oriented to the concept of sustainable development, in particular promoting its environmental component, eco-products, and eco packaging. Trade, especially retail, plays an important role in linking producers and consumers, and society as a whole. In this way, trade has a good overview of all the changes occurring in the environment, production, and consumer needs. Changes in the environment further stimulate trade to operate in accordance with the principles of sustainable development, including all its dimensions. In this regard, special attention is paid to the protection of working and living environment, as components of sustainable development. The chapter includes a review of literature in the field of sustainable development and application of this concept in the trade and retail sector. The theoretical aspect of the research focuses on conceptualization of sustainable development and its environmental component in trade and retail. With reference to theoretical research on the implementation of environmental component of sustainable development in trade, empirical research has been conducted from two aspects. First, analysis focuses on the performance and socio-economic importance of trade sector of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the number of ISO 14001 certificates in trading companies. Second, analysis shifts to the largest trading companies in the Republic of Serbia, based on available secondary data on the implementation of the concept of sustainable development and its environmental component.

This paper analyses the stalling of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and its systemic and institutional consequences through a geopolitical economy approach that integrates the French school of international economic relations and Régulation Theory. These approaches put states and their economic roles at the fore, correcting dominant free trade approaches to world trade. The paper also avoids monocausal explanations for trade talk deadlocks and aims to provide a comprehensive approach on the co-evolution of world trade patterns and its institutions. In this approach, the DDA stalemate is traced to an institution-structure mismatch in how states articulate their accumulation strategies and institutions (competition, state regulation, adhesion to international regime) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime occasioned by the emergence of new trade powers. This has given rise to three distinct conflicts in how member states navigate between the main parameters of the multilateral trading system (non-discrimination, reciprocity and balance of power) and their national accumulation strategies: the erosion of non-discrimination and reciprocity; the failure to build an operational compromise between development and ‘globalization’, that is, between multilateral openness and new trade and power balances; and the difficulty in reaching a compromise between historical and emerging capitalisms. The outcome of these conflicts will determine the institutional configuration of the post-Doha WTO agenda.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

This chapter seeks to analyze trade in environmental goods between China and the EU and highlight prominent problems and future opportunities.

We explore trade empirically, based on the definition of environmental goods proposed by OECD and database from UN COMTRADE (HS96).

We find that value of trade in environmental goods between China and the EU has increased from $2.759 billion in 1996 to $42.446 billion in 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 21%. Trade is concentrated in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Belgium (together accounting for 82%). China has a trade deficit in most categories of environmental goods. Overall, although trade in environmental goods between China and the EU has increased rapidly, the trade structure is unbalanced and the competitiveness of China’s environmental goods trade is still low.

This chapter provides a robust basis for analysis of trade in environmental goods between China and the EU.

Discussions on environmental goods trade are complicated by a lack of clear definition and lack of consistent data. This chapter provides a clear and consistent data set in order to have a robust basis for analysis of this important phenomenon.

This chapter explores Lula's internationalist strategy toward the politics of globalization, which involves building alliances within the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and between Mercosur and the European Union. It compares Lula's internationalism with the earlier nationalist Brazilian informatics policy as shifting strategies of sovereignty, highlighting their differences as interventions in the politics of globalization. In the process, it explores the changing conditions of globalization and assesses the potential of Lula's strategy as an alternative to the dominant neoliberal globalization form.