| The Centre d’Etudes Prospectives
et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII) in Paris and the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB) are
co-organizing a series of conferences on issues in the field of integration and
trade. The First IDB/CEPII Conference took place in Washington D.C. on November
5-6, 2001 (“Impacts of Trade
Liberalization Agreements on Latin America and the Caribbean”) and the
Second Conference was also held in Washington D.C. on October 6-7, 2003 (“Economic
Implications of the Doha Development Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean”).
The Third IDB/CEPII Conference that will take place on February 9-10, 2006, at
the Inter-American Development Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. This event
will focus on the New Regionalism: Progress, Setbacks and Challenges. The Conference
is organized by CEPII and the IDB's Integration and Regional Programs Department
(through the Institute for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean
in Buenos Aires) and the Bank’s Special Office in Europe.
The objective of the conference is to take stock of the progress in the process
of regional integration of the South-South as well as North-South type in different
parts of the world since the 1990s, and on a comparative basis look into the achievements
as well as challenges that the various integration groupings are facing today.
The two-day conference will cover a broad range of technical and policy issues
with regard to the design and functioning of regional integration initiatives.
Preliminary agenda
| Session 1: Asymmetric
Integration Within and/or Between Countries |
Asymmetries in size and wealth among –
and also within – integration partners, as well as differential impacts
of policies, can lead to disparities in economic performance and gains, and cause
tensions. What are the policy options for addressing them?
|
| Session 2: Assessing
Trade Impacts of Regional Integration: Border Effects, Trade Patterns |
How does regional integration alter border
effects within the region and vis-à-vis third countries? How will patterns
of specialization be affected?
|
| Session 3: From Free
Trade Areas to Fuller Cooperation |
Regional integration agreements may –
or may not – go beyond free trade areas. Is it possible to identify any
sequencing patterns between trade and non-trade cooperation, and are trade agreements
the basis for major cooperation in other areas? These as well as the institutional
modalities will be analyzed with regard to the major N-S initiatives (such as
the EU Association and Partnership Agreements and the European Neighborhood Policy,
FTAA, APEC etc), as well as S-S initiatives (such as Mercosur, ASEAN, SADC, etc).
|
| Session 4: Implementation
Issues |
What is the extent of actual integration
vs. the objectives of formal integration agreements? What are the causes, impacts
and consequences of incomplete implementation of regional integration agreements?
What are the policy responses and institutions needed for fuller implementation
of agreed goals?
|
| Session 5: Multinational
Enterprises’ Reactions to Regional Integration |
How are foreign direct investment (FDI) strategies
by multinational enterprises (MNEs) affected by the nature, design and content
(e.g. rules of origin, investment provisions, exceptions, etc.) of different integration
schemes?
|
| Session 6: Institutional
Patterns in Regional Integration |
| What are the emerging patterns in sequencing
of institutional development ? How relevant is the EU experience to regional initiatives
in developing countries? What are the alternative patterns and design? |
|
