This is a bittersweet Talking Trade post. After nearly 350 posts on a wide range of trade-related topics since 2014, this is the final one. The Asian Trade Centre is closing. (But--spoiler alert--I will be remaining in Singapore to keep improving trade policy in Asia as part of the Hinrich Foundation. More details on the transition can be found below, including the link to become an HF subscriber.)
I arrived in Asia in 2005 to work at a local university. About a year later, I had the opportunity to become the first grant recipient from the Temasek Foundation to create a dedicated centre for training trade officials across the region.
During the next eight years, my team at the Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade and Negotiations (TFCTN) and I worked with officials from Mongolia to Sri Lanka to New Zealand. We conducted courses ranging from six weeks to three intensive days on nearly every topic included in trade.
It was an exciting time to be in the region. Governments were enthusiastically signing up to a wide variety of trade agreements. For example, Laos completed accession procedures to become the 158th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). We were in Bhutan for two workshops to support a renewed consideration of joining the WTO. We also had several training activities in Timor Leste with members of Parliament and across the government to support accession to the WTO in conjunction with plans to become part of ASEAN. Mongolia, the last WTO member to not have a free trade agreement (FTA), asked for training to complete an FTA with Japan.
ASEAN itself was rapidly pursuing greater internal integration, with plans for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) pushed forward from 2020 to 2015. It was also working on a range of agreements called ASEAN+1s with major powers in the region including Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.
There was also a lot of activity to integrate Asia more closely to the rest of the world. The first meeting in what would become the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) took place in Singapore on the sidelines of APEC. The TPP, as regular Talking Trade readers will recall, rapidly expanded and finally concluded in 2014. The European Union was actively involved in working with members of ASEAN to create an eventual bloc-to-bloc agreement, starting with a bilateral FTA with Singapore.
I started the Asian Trade Centre in mid 2014 to work more closely with both governments and companies in the region, as it was clear that improved communication was going to be critical in driving stronger uptake in trade agreement provisions and improved outcomes.
My team and I worked on an even wider array of trade projects, including helping firms sort out how to leverage the opportunities in trade agreements like the TPP and ASEAN’s suite of FTAs, working with governments to identify gaps in coverage, and continuing capacity building with both companies and governments on trade issues.
The TPP morphed into the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and came into force for the first members in late 2018. ASEAN drove greater regional integration with its Dialogue Partners through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was concluded with 15 members in 2019. ASEAN also continued to expand its set of FTAs with the addition of an agreement with Hong Kong and to upgrade its existing ASEAN+1 FTAs.
Some Asian governments also took advantage of the opportunity to create new types of trade deals, starting with the four party Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA). Singapore, in particular, led the way in expanding digital commitments through Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) with Australia, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Singapore and Australia signed a green economy agreement while New Zealand helped spearhead a larger grouping in the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability, where talks are still ongoing.
Despite fairly strong enthusiasm for expanding and deepening trade commitments in the region, parts of the rest of the world were pulling back from integration. The WTO’s attempts to craft a new round of agreement collapsed in mid 2008. The financial crisis exploded a few months later and a backlash against trade expanded further under the US-China trade war starting in earnest in 2017. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted new risks.
In short, trade was and has remained very exciting in the region. Even periods of retrenchment have provided opportunities for thinking harder about how to more fully spread the benefits of trade. We started working with the smallest firms from the beginning of the Asian Trade Centre, including running multiple training programs and mentorship projects with the generous support of Google and the UPS Foundation. Trade does not work if it does not deliver opportunities to micro, small and medium firms.
Over time, the Asian Trade Centre moved into more aid and development projects, including work on non-tariff barriers in ASEAN, implementation of ASEAN’s e-commerce agreement, and addressing challenges posed by digital trade. Some of these projects were quite exciting with strong support from government officials and partners, while others were much more challenging to develop and deliver.
Through it all, I have benefited from outstanding staff members and partners. There are too many to list, but I would like to single out a few staff including Swee Seng Quek, Neena Moorjani, Caroline Verley, Minh Hue Nguyen, Annie Fong, Sebastian Cortes-Sanchez, Nick Agnew, Barath Harithas, Elizabeth Rankine, LJ Lombos, and Jia Hui Tee. (I should note that Jia Hui has joined me at the Hinrich Foundation!) We have also benefited from a large, fantastic group of interns.
I have been able to work with some frankly stellar partners over the years, including the staff at the Temasek Foundation, Google, Amazon, AWS, Facebook/Meta, UPS, UPS Foundation, Citi, USABC, EUABC, AmCham, SICC, Food Industry Asia, FMG, WEF, and TradeWorthy. Many of our government partners have also made the journey a joy, with a special thanks to Australia’s DFAT, New Zealand MFAT, Singapore’s MTI and MFA, the European Union, Japan’s METI, the UK’s DIT and FCDO, and USTR and USAID. I would also like to thank our international partners such as the ASEAN, APEC, and WTO Secretariats, Asian Development Bank, UNCTAD, and UNESCAP.
After almost a decade of running the Asian Trade Centre, I’m ready for a new challenge. I’m thrilled to say that the Hinrich Foundation has made me their Head of Trade Policy, so that we can continue to build on my past experience and merge it with their world-class outreach and platform for engagement on research and education.
If you would like to stay in touch, I would encourage you to become a Hinrich Foundation member. [Click here for the link.] I can be reached in my new job at deborah.elms@hinrichfoundation.com I look forward to hearing from you soon and very much appreciate all the support that Talking Trade readers have provided to me over the years. It’s been a wild and crazy ride!
***This final Talking Trade was written by Dr. Deborah Elms, formerly the Executive Director of the Asian Trade Centre in Singapore.***