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This paper aims to analyze the ethical responses of the fashion industry to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when the entire world was shocked by the rapid spread of the virus. The authors describe lessons from emergency ethics of care in the fashion industry during the initial months of COVID-19, which can assist fashion managers in improving ethical decisions in future operations.

Rapid qualitative research methods were employed by conducting real-time, in-depth interviews with key informants from multinational fashion companies operating in Spain, a severely affected region. A content analysis of news articles published during the first months of 2020 was conducted.

Five critical disruptions in the fashion industry were identified: (1) changes in public needs, (2) transportation and distribution backlogs, (3) defective and counterfeit supplies, (4) stakeholder relationships at stake and (5) managers' coping challenges. Additionally, five business survival responses with a strong ethics of care component were identified, implemented by some fashion companies to mitigate the damage: (1) adapting production for public well-being, (2) enhancing the flexibility of logistic networks, (3) emphasizing quality and innovation, (4) reinventing stakeholder collaborations and (5) practicing responsible leadership.

Despite the well-documented controversies surrounding unethical practices within the fashion industry, even during COVID-19, our findings inform managers of the potential and capability of fashion companies to operate more responsibly. The lessons learned can guide fashion companies' operations in a post-pandemic society. Furthermore, they can address other grand challenges, such as natural disasters, geopolitical conflicts and climate change.

In a supply-constrained region like Asia, promoting exports has always been a challenge particularly at a time when Asia’s trade has been severely affected by lack of external demand. This paper argues that price barriers have taken a new shape during the global financial crisis period which may generate differential impacts on trade flows as we proceed toward recovery. The size and shape of price barriers would be higher if NTBs, applied by the countries during the crisis period, were counted. One of the conclusions of this paper is that ‘price’ barrier is still more important than ‘non-price’ barrier in enhancing Asia’s trade and integration. The higher the price barrier between countries in a pair, the less they trade. In other words, a 10 percent increase in the ad-valorem price (transport and tariff) lowered trade by 6 percent. Tariff and transport costs, each considered separately, also influence the trade flow in the same direction, to more or less the same extent. There are indications of huge domestic infrastructure bottlenecks in countries in Asia. Based on direct and indirect evidence related to trade barriers, this paper concludes that complementary trade policies focusing on price and non-price barriers have immense importance in enhancing international trade and integration in the post-crisis period.

One of the important goals of trade facilitation is to lower the costs of trade that serve as a barrier to the developing countries from enjoying the benefits of increased trade and becoming integrated into global supply chains that account for nearly 60 percent of global trade today. The high trade costs that are plaguing most developing countries is mainly incurred from the lack of adequate trade-related infrastructure and low quality of institutions that hinder the efficient flow of goods across and within borders. Therefore, the trade facilitation rules that are contained in FTAs among bilateral trading partners are inevitably aimed at deepening their participation in the global value chain network. However, an observation of the FTAs concluded by Korea and the trade facilitation rules contained therein shows that the current trade facilitation rules in bilateral FTAs may be of little practical use for countries that lack the capacity to be involved in the international production activities in the first place. From the development perspective, the current WTO negotiations on trade facilitation which take full account of the special and differential treatment needs of the less developed country members appear more likely to contribute to providing the trading environment that is free from the barriers to trade that have inhibited the less developed countries from integration into the global supply chains and the benefits thereof.

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the impact of logistics efficiency on trade volume growth, and to examine the effects of lower tariffs resulting from free trade agreements. In order to measure the impact of logistics efficiency on trade volume growth, the export and import trade volume among 53 countries was introduced as the dependent variable. Macroeconomic indicators including annual average tariff rate, logistics efficiency indicators for port, air, railroad, road and container vessel connectivity, as well as dummy variables such as whether a free trade agreement was signed, were introduced as the explanatory variables. Bilateral panel data between trading nations was used to estimate the gravity panel model, and analysis followed the categorization: 1) separate inputs of the five logistics efficiency variables and 2) one aggregated input of the five variables as a single indicator. The analysis found that logistics efficiency had a statistically significant impact on bilateral trade volume growth, while the impact of lowering tariff rates on increasing trade was insignificant. In addition, logistics efficiency was found to have a greater impact on increasing trade volume than free trade agreements. These results imply that trade can be promoted more effectively by establishing and efficiently operating logistics-related infrastructure rather than traditional methods of reducing trade barriers such as lowering tariffs and signing free trade agreements.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of export logistics components: shipment arrangements, timely delivery, customs quality, trade infrastructure, and tracking and tracing on export competitiveness of firms in the East African Community (EAC).

The study adopted the Structural Gravity Model and the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML). PPML a nonlinear estimation method was applied in STATA on a balanced panel data for the period of 2007–2018. Data were obtained from World Bank International Trade Centre (ITC), World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and World Bank development indicators.

Results show that timely delivery and tracking and tracing of exports are positive and significant predictors of export competitiveness in EAC countries. Conversely, shipment arrangements, customs quality and trade infrastructure have no influence on export competitiveness.

The results of this study show that export logistics components of shipment arrangements, customs quality and trade infrastructure do not matter at the present in improving export competitiveness in the EAC. There is a need to examine the intricate nature of the EAC economy to further this study's findings.

The EAC partner states should embrace deep integration by removing the behind the border trade barriers in addition to other trade restrictions, to create a common economic space among member states. This will further shrink the delivery time and the tracking and tracing of exports hence improving the competitiveness of EAC exports within the region and outside. Also, common and harmonized trade policies and regulations should be implemented through mutual recognition agreements where countries agree to recognize one another's conformity assessments.

This study explains the complex dynamic interactions of export logistics factors in the EAC using quantitative data and that this interaction has an effect on the export competitiveness in import-dominated countries with less harmonization in their trade policies.

Since its development by Tinbergen (1962), the gravity model of international trade has widely been applied to analyse the effect of various factors on trade relationships between countries. Past studies on trade gravity vary not only in the mix of model variables but also in how they have come into the analysis. This study reviews existing literature on bilateral trade with an aim to identify influential predictors such as changes of trade policy and national development strategy and highlight important yet understudied factors such as transport and logistics infrastructure, and sustainable development. To demonstrate the needs to examine these critical factors across industry sectors, the study presents the case of textiles and clothing (T&C) production and trade between China and its trading partners as an illustration. Through the literature review, it shows how the gravity model can be applied to address current issues in international trade arena such as the potential trade war between the US and China, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and other important factors shaping global T&C trade. This study offers future research directions for analysis of global trade in the T&C industry and contributes to the wider literature of international business and trade.

This paper defines the emerging intermodal issues, identifies alternative solutions and develops strategies to achieve them. It reviews intermodal logistics policies in the EU, NAFTA and Asia, focusing on the United States and Japan in NAFTA and Asia respectively, because they have been the prominent motors of international trade in their regions. From an Asian standpoint, it is a pity that it is not yet possible to report on a common intermodal strategy.

This study assessed the contribution of containerization to the development of Western Ports, Lagos Nigeria. The aim was to assess the influence of containerization on some indices of port development such as port infrastructure development, ship turnaround time, cargo dwell time and congestion. Questionnaire was used to gather information on the contribution of containerization to change in maritime trade in the country, the influence of containerization on terminal expansion, congestion, level of investment in container port infrastructure as well as the influence of such investment on container dwell time and ship turnaround time (TAT) and the competitiveness of container terminal within Nigeria port systems and with other developed container ports of the world. Secondary data used included statistics of reports of operations of Western Ports between 2000 and 2010 as reported by NPA, as well as reports of some selected ports derived from Containerization International Year Book, which were used in this study for the sake of global reference. Summary tables and ANOVA for the analysis of the data. Results revealed a significant contribution of containerization to maritime trade relative to the ports’ annual records but with no significant influence on ship turnaround time, cargo dwell time congestion which are determinants of port productivity and competitiveness. The study concluded that Western Ports have still not reaped gains of containerization and lacking in competitiveness when compared with other developed ports of the world.

Discussion of security in supply chains has been intensified since the tragedy of 9/11 in the United States. The World Customs Organization's SAFE Framework with its Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) program is one of the prominent supply chain security initiatives. At the time of its introduction in 2005, 168 member countries signed their support for its implementation. However, the last AEO Compendium reports only 69 countries currently have AEO program in place. This relatively slow development indicates the complexity of issues that might challenge countries to implement the initiative. Against this background, this paper aims to look at the AEO implementation in an environment where supply chain security initiative is relatively new. It focuses on policy development perspectives where the case study of Indonesia might represent challenges of other countries. Involving methods of desk research, interviews, and field observation, this paper starts with the development of various international supply chain security programs where the AEO finds it prominence. It follows with a discussion on the Indonesian AEO implementation where challenges and its policy development process are explored.