The WTO is going through a leadership transition as after 8 years, the incumbent Director-General steps down on September 1, 2013. What are the challenges ahead for Pascal Lamy’s successor? The next DG will certainly have to take the Doha loss and move toward an updated multilateral trading system.

International trade plays a key role in technological diffusion. In a recent work, we show how firms can improve their competitiveness and export performance through importing more varieties of high quality or lower cost intermediate goods.

An international organization (uniquely) in charge of managing international migration flows is missing. However recent Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) include migration related provisions able to manage migration flows. Further, the signature of a PTA itself boosts bilateral migration flows.

The slow progress of regional integration efforts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region could be explained by the reluctance of resource-rich countries to deepen trade agreements which hurt them.

In France, like in most Western European countries, the debate on competitiveness is entirely focused on manufacturing industries. The case of services sectors remains in the shadows, even though they undoubtedly are an important source of employment and constitute a clear comparative advantage.

China joined the WTO in December 2001. China and its partners had been negotiating the conditions of its accession since 1987 with two fundamental goals: integrate China into the global economy and anchor the process of domestic economic reforms and opening up.

The specialization of countries in international trade reveals their comparative advantages and disadvantages. The CHELEM database which provides complete and consistent statistics classified by country in the long term is used to analyze the structural aspect of the competitiveness of nations in all economic sectors, namely the primary sector, industry and services.