The role of trade in Brazil

Brazil is a member of diverse economic organizations, including Mercosul, WTO, Unasul, and the Cairns Group. Upon this, we could know that Brazil deeply depends on its contribution of global trade to its economy. In addition, it mainly exports manufactured and semimanufactured goods (60% of total). In fact, Brazil has experienced an incredible increase of imports and exports since 2000 because of the lower wages and the demand of its skilled labors. Thanks to outstanding technology and Government's policy supporting the openness of economy, Brazil has been the world's eighth largest economy by comparing to GDP.

Due to the increasing demand of quality labors, improving technology, stable government condition (friendly policy and no war) and fruitful materials (coffee, cocoa, and sugar), these factors lure a lot of foreign direct investments inflow to Brazil. That brings about several advantages for Brazil. For example, creating numerous jobs, increase of labor wages, boosting purchasing power from middle-class.

In my opinoins, Brazil still has room to reverse its policies to take care of those people whom have suffered from the flawed economic system. It is because that even though Brazil has several superior developments and it is the eighth largest economy; however, there is a problem which is uneven distribution of wealth. Therefore, while Government is thinking how to get there to become the fifth largest economy in the world, they should make order to shorten the distance between riches and poors. Here I suggest that Brazil should take first step to take good care of the unskilled labors' wages and benefits through imposing taxes on importing luxury goods, such as great cars.

East African Community (EAC) Customs Union

The East African Community (EAC) is an intergovernmental organisation comprising the five east African countries Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. It was first established in 1967 and re-established in 2000. "The objective of EAC is to create one single customs territory to enable partner states to enjoy economies of scale, with a view to supporting the process of economic development" (EAC, 2011). Upon this, we can know it is a regional trading agreement of customs union.

Furthermore, its benefits include same policy and law in the countries under the regional area, enlarged market with minimal customs clearance formalities, and better conditions for world-market exporters through cheaper inputs and lower pressures on the exchange rate. On the other hand, it also has some disadvantages, including conflicting interests between nations, no convincing instrument to guide the dispute settlement, and language barriers.

I think regional trade agreements accompany with several advantages for developing countries in terms of economic growth. First of all, it simplize the customs procedure that result in the losses of added costs of time and money. Secondly, it enlarges the markets and strengthen the cooperations between members. Thirdly, it attracts the foreign investments which want to take advantage of free duty policy.
However, there are still some unfair situations in the EAC as I mentioned above. As a result, I recommend that they could negotiate on an agreement for an annual judger to effectively solve the disputes. In addition, they could reallocate revenues fairly depends on how much they work. In fact, I think if they have differen focused specialization activities to make oppotunities for trading would be fairer than recllocating wealth.

In terms of international rade, how will ISO be beneficial?

At the beginning, we should know what ISO is and what its main prupose is. In short, ISO is the abbreviation of "International Organization for Standardization" and whose major purpose is to promote and develop international standards to serve as a basis for countries and companies to follow. In addition, it expects the manufacuring suppliers around the world to improve and establish its quality and quality assurance systems, and achieve the lowest cost to meet the requirements of customer or product.

Well, what advantages we may have if we pursue ISO certification for our business? First of all, we can reduce production costs by decreasing turnovers as ISO promises to achieve the lowest cost to address the requirements. Secondly, we can maintain good working relationships with our suppliers. Thirdly, we can help our systems to reduce the degree of regulatory constraints to a minimum. The last but important is that we can increase customers' confidence to trade with us by adopting ISO.

From my point of view, I do believe that ISO could accelerate global trade even though it takes a lot of time and money. However, it can help us to build up our reputation for foreign companies to purchase our products. And also, the international standardization process makes our products become better quality with low cost. The foreign companies may consider outsource their parts in our countries. It indeed is another way to increase domestic jobs and promote importing and exporting, isn't it?

How did import substitution and export-led growth affect Taiwan's economy

After I go over the two industrialization policies, import substitution and export-led growth, I find they can absoluately change a country's economic structure that I have never think about it. Let's take my home country, Taiwan, as an great example.
Taiwan has been through two times rotations of import substitution and export-led growth to protect and thrive its industries. From 1953 to 1959, Taiwan used import-substitution policy to protect its light industry such as the textile industry, plastic industry, and food processing industry in order to improve people's lives and accelerate industrialization.
Then, from 1959 to 1973, due to the rise of outsourcing and offshoring, Taiwan started utilizing its labor-intensive industries to attract the capital from overseas. As of the period of time, Taiwan's GDP grew a lot and became a industrilized country.
However, Taiwan adopted the import-substitution policy again from 1973 to 1979 in order to establish an independent economy. The reason was that the whole world was experiencing the economic recession and fuel crisis, therefore, an independent economy could prevent Taiwan from the hard time. Meanwhile, Taiwan focused on developing its heavy industries such as petrochemical industry and steel industry.
After the second import-substitution, Taiwan decreased tariff barriers and encourage the inflows of overseas investments until now.

All in all, I think the entire transtion of Taiwan's industrilization strategy was a great example to realize how import-substitution and export-led growth can influence a country's economic structure. In addition, the proper usage of these two policies can lead a country to succeed in economic growth beyond question.