Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade

The Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT) is an open regional network composed of leading trade research institutions across the United Nations ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific) region, and supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

ARTNeT aims at increasing the amount of quality and relevant trade research in the region by harnessing the research capacity already available and developing additional capabilities. The activities of ARTNeT continue to be focused on three pillars, namely:

•production of demand-driven and home-grown research of the region;

•building of research capacity in the region, particularly that of LDCs; and

•dissemination of knowledge and information to key stakeholders.

Current members include 40 leading national trade research and academic institutions from almost 20 developing countries from East, South, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

ARTNeT Establishment and Structure

The Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT) was launched in November 2004 with the support of the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Trade and Investment Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) which provides both the Secretariat of the network and a direct regional link to trade policymakers and other international organizations.

Since its launch, the Network has attracted 40 member research institutions from the developing countries of the region and has gained some additional partners, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). A number of bilateral donors are also providing financial support to the network. For example, the Government of France and the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development have provided support for the ARTNeT Greater Mekong Subregion initiative, and the Government of Macao China funded the MARKHUB project.

ARTNeT Strategy

To achieve the long-term goal of enabling government policy makers to more effectively formulate trade policies, ARTNeT has adopted a three-pronged strategy.

ARTNeT and its members aim to produce high quality research and analysis on trade and investment related issues. Currently the ARTNeT research programme emphasizes the implementation of regional multi-institutions research studies including themes such as:

- Trade, investment, and domestic policy coherence for inclusive growth

- Trade Facilitation (TF) and Development of Related Services Sectors

- Multilateral Trade Liberalization and Regional integration

ARTNeT research as well as members’ research is disseminated through various means, including a dedicated website, an online regional database of trade-related publications, a working paper and a policy brief series, a newsletter and other publications. ARTNeT's thematic consultative meetings provide both the research institutions and policy makers with an opportunity to exchange information, and data, share ideas, and review and refine research findings and recommendations.

As many of the countries in the region have yet to evolve trade-related research programmes, ARTNeT strives to build research capacity in the region, particularly in least developed countries. This is done through implementation of regional team-based research studies, research grants to junior researchers from least developed countries, organization of technical training workshops for trade research, and visiting fellowships to academic institutions.

ARTNeT Resources and Tools

ARTNeT provides access to the following tools and resources through its website:

The ARTNeT database of trade publications gives access to full-text trade-related publications of research institutions and international organizations working in the Asia-Pacific region, including those of ARTNeT members and partners. The database is updated regularly and allows search by trade focus areas, sources, keywords and more.

The Asia-Pacific Trade Agreements Database (APTIAD) gives researchers and policymakers easy access to all the preferential trade agreements entered into by the countries of the Asia and Pacific region and enables them to calculate some of the most commonly used indicators (e.g. export/import value, export/import growth, export/import share, trade share, trade intensity) by country or region, product and year.

This initiative is designed to more closely integrate the research capacity building and research programme implementation objectives and activities of ARTNeT. It includes regional technical research workshops, support for research studies to apply techniques learned, development of related research facilitation tools, and support for dissemination of policy relevant results.

The Trade and Investment Division, in support to the ARTNeT research programme on trade facilitation, has developed a bilateral trade cost database in an effort to increase understanding of the cost of trading between countries in Asia and the Pacific and beyond. The trade cost measure is a comprehensive all-inclusive measure based on micro-theory and calculated using macro-economic data, providing an alternative measure of trade facilitation performance.

ARTNeT Alerts provide a channel for policymakers and other stakeholders to alert the trade and investment research community to emerging policy challenges.

ARTNeT Knowledge Platforms

ARTNeT Aid for Trade is designed to provide conceptual understanding of what is the importance of aid towards trade and development. The platform aims at disseminating comprehensive information on stakeholders It is expected that this platform also contribute towards supporting greater regional cooperation and coordinating among the actors of Aid for Trade in Asia and Pacific. The platform provides access to over 2500 full text working papers, reports and other materials available in the ARTNeT Publication Search Database

ARTNeT CENSUS is a knowledge sharing initiative in the area of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).It is designed to bring together regional stakeholders to build support to policymaking necessary for growth of the innovation economy by offering the Asia-Pacific region.CENSUS will also provide a unique platform for enabling research and related output dissemination. It includes a searchable database of individuals be they policy makers, academics or intellectual property lawyers from within and outside the region with the interests in IPRs.

ARTNeT Services Trade and regulation platform provides enhanced access to resources relating to trade and regulation in services, including links to trainings and publications, as well as to databases of statistics and regulations of relevance to services. There is also an on-line registration for experts in these areas.

ARTNeT GMS initiative aims to provide enhanced complementary support to research institutions from the subregion to conduct joint trade-related research on issues of interest to policymakers. The initiative includes a capacity-building component involving researchers and research institutions in GMS countries, as well as a research programme component in line with priority areas identified through ARTNeT consultations and relevant government focal points. It provides up-to-date figures on development gaps between member states in ASEAN.

ARTNeT Publications

ARTNeT presents materials from ARTNeT research programmes and/or individual research programmes of members in the form of ARTNeT policy briefs, working paper, newsletters, books, books reviews, and other publications all of which are available for viewing and downloading free of charge on its website.

Recent topics have included:

ARTNeT events and training

ARTNeT organizes conference/workshops/policy to provide an opportunity for researchers to showcase their work and to get input and feedback from prominent trade experts and policy makers from around the world. The dissemination events help to address issues which are of particular relevance in one country, while drawing from studies and lessons from other countries to reach policy conclusions.

ARTNeT Members

Country Institute Website
Bangladesh 1. Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies http://www.bids.org.bd/
Bangladesh 2. Bangladesh Tariff Commission http://www.bdtariffcom.org/
Bangladesh 3. Centre for Policy Dialogue http://www.cpd.org.bd/index.asp
Bangladesh 4. The Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh http://www.pri-bd.org
Bangladesh 5. Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) http://www.bfti.org.bd/
Cambodia 6. Cambodia Development Resource Institute, Cambodia* http://www.cdri.org.kh/
China 7. China Europe International Business School http://www.ceibs.edu/
China 8. Chinese Academy for International Trade and Economic Cooperation http://caitec.mofcom.gov.cn
China 9. School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics http://site.uibe.edu.cn/newsenglish/Index.aspx
China 10. Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade http://www1.shift.edu.cn/english/
Fiji 11. University of South Pacific, Fiji (Pacific Institute of Advanced Studies in Development and Governance http://www.usp.ac.fj/economics
Hong Kong 12. Hong Kong Institute of Economics & Finance, Hong Kong University http://www.hiebs.hku.hk
India 13. Center for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade http://wtocentre.iift.ac.in/
India 14. Department of Economics, Jadavpur University http://www.jadavpur.edu
India 15. Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations http://www.icrier.org
India 16. Indian Institute of Management Bangalore http://www.iimb.ernet.in/
India 17. Research and Information System for Developing Countries http://www.ris.org.in/
India 18. The Energy and Resources Institute http://www.teriin.org/
Indonesia 19. Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Indonesia* http://www.csis.or.id/
Indonesia 20. Centre for World Trade Studies Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta (CwtsPspd) http://cwts.ugm.ac.id
Indonesia 21. Economics Department, and Business and Management Graduate School, Bogor Agricultural University http://mb.ipb.ac.id/
Indonesia 22. Center for Industry, SME and Business Competition Studies, Faculty of Economics, Trisakti University http://www.fe.trisakti.ac.id/pusatstudi_industri/
Korea 23. Korea Institute for International Economic Policy http://www.kiep.go.kr/eng/
Lao PDR 24. Economic Research Institute for Trade, Lao PDR
Malaysia 25. Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Malaysia http://www.ukm.my/ikmas/
Malaysia 26. The Department of Economics, International Islamic University http://www.iium.edu.my/kenms/department/doe
Nepal 27. Institute for Policy Research and Development http://www.iprad.org.np/
Nepal 28. Development Policy Research (IDPR)
Pakistan 29. Pakistan Institute of Development Economics http://www.pide.org.pk/
Pakistan 30. Pakistan Institute of Trade and Development, Pakistan http://www.pitad.org.pk/
Philippines 31. Center for the Advancement of Trade Integration and Facilitation http://www.catif.org/
Philippines 32. Centre for Business and Economics Research and Development, De La Salle University, Philippines http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/research/centers/cberd/default.asp
Philippines 33. Philippine Institute for Development Studies http://www.pids.gov.ph/
Sri Lanka 34. Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya http://www.jaduniv.edu.in/view_department.php?deptid=66
Sri Lanka 35. Institute of Policy Studies, Sri Lanka http://www.ips.lk/
Thailand 36. Centre for International Economics and Development Studies http://www.econ.nida.ac.th
Thailand 37. Thailand Development Research Institute http://www.tdri.or.th/en/php/index.php
Thailand 38. The Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University http://www.econ.chula.ac.th/
Viet Nam 39. Centre for Analysis and Forecasting, Viet Nam
Viet Nam 40. Foreign Trade University http://en.ftu.edu.vn/

ARTNeT Associate Partners

Institute Website
1. Asian Development Bank Institute http://www.adbi.org/
2. Centre for Agribusiness Policy & Strategy, Massey University http://caps.massey.ac.nz/index.php
3. CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics and Environment http://www.cuts-international.org/citee.htm
4. Economics Department, Auckland University of Technology http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/A-Z-listing-of-academic-fields-and-disciplines-at-AUT-University/economics
5. Food and Agriculture Organization http://www.fao.org
6. Griffith University (GBS Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics) http://www.griffith.edu.au/business-government/griffith-business-school/departments/department-accounting-finance-economics
7. Institute for International Trade http://www.iit.adelaide.edu.au/
8. International Institute for Trade and Development http://www.itd.or.th/en
9. National university of Lao http://www.canpub.com/nuol/
10. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development http://www.oecd.org
11. School of Economics, University of Adelaide http://www.economics.adelaide.edu.au/
12. South Asian Network of Economic Modelers http://www.sanemnet.org/
13. The Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore(ISAS-NUS) http://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/
14. The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Regional Economic Studies Program, Singapore http://www.iseas.edu.sg/
15. United Nations University - Comparative Regional Integration Studies http://www.cris.unu.edu
16. The Economic Research Institute, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences http://www.ecrin.ru/
17. The University of Wollongong, Australia http://www.uow.edu.au
18. The Mekong Institute, GMS Inter-Governmental Organization, Thailand http://mekonginstitute.org

References

External links