Abstract: This piece will start with the crisis in the global trading system in 2022, as precipitated by the trade war between the US and China, and impasse on WTO reform, and the paralysis of the dispute settlement system.  It will then describe the best-case scenario for 2030, focusing mainly on global trade cooperation centred around the WTO, but also mentioning the cooperation in two related areas, i.e., climate change and data governance.

At the recently concluded Colombo Summit, the leaders of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) group of countries adopted a Master Plan for Transport Connectivity. Now, we need a framework for its operationalisation.

The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) offers EU companies a valuable and unique breakthrough into China's enormous cloud market.

In 2020, the female labour force participation rate was below 50 per cent in Bangladesh and India (36 and 20 per cent, respectively) and 59 per cent in Bhutan. While Nepal recorded 82 per cent women participation, it did not make it much different from the other three countries concerning the quality of female labour participation.

The European Union (EU) and China agreed on the draft of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) text in January 2021, after over seven years of negotiations. Both parties opine that a distinct feature of the CAI is the inclusion of a standalone Section on sustainable development (SD) and investment. While around a dozen EU trade agreements contain an SD Chapter, it is rather exceptional that an investment agreement includes comprehensive SD provisions.

The almost certainty that a woman is about to be the new Director General of  the World Trade Organization (WTO), does not change the fact that the world of international trade has been very slow in accommodating progress in women’s participation as policy-makers. Over the period of 20 years, female professional staff population at the WTO has increased from 31% in 1995 to 45% in 2016 – that is an increase of just above 0.5% per year. Clearly, much more has to be done for the WTO Secretariat to break the glass ceiling within the organization and its bodies.

Along with the expansion of trade activities, trade is increasingly perceived as leaving too many individuals and communities behind, making a strong case for reformulating trade policies and practices to be inclusive. Although the importance of having this high-end goal of making trade inclusive is undeniable, one has to ask what does that mean in a practical sense? When we say that something, in this case, trade, is inclusive, what does this mean and how do we measure it?