Your Monday morning coffee briefing from TFG. Concern continued to grow over new variants of COVID-19. The UK has closed all travel corridors as of this morning, with anyone flying into the country from overseas having to show proof of a negative coronavirus test taken within the previous 72 hours. The UK economy shrank by 2.6% in November as lockdowns hit activity in the service sectors. Construction and manufacturing saw far lower falls in output than in the first lockdown, limiting the overall fall in output.
WTO, OECD launch dataset on bilateral trade in services
The WTO and OECD jointly launched a new dataset covering bilateral services trade of over 200 economies from 2005 to 2019. The WTO-OECD Balanced Trade in Services (BaTIS) dataset, which provides detailed data for 12 services sectors in addition to total commercial services, offers a complete and balanced matrix that reconciles previously asymmetrical export and import data. Read more →
BAFT releases best practices for new financial asset on DLT
The BAFT Innovation Council established the DLPC working group in 2016. It was tasked with producing standardized rules for the transformation of a payment commitment into a digital asset to be used in any trade finance solution sitting on any distributed ledger technology platform. The working group introduced the DLPC Best Practices for trial use in April 2019. Read more →
Brexit could cost UK exporters £25bn as full Covid recovery pushed back to 2023
The UK’s exporters could face a Brexit bill worth as much as £25bn in lost revenues in 2021, according to a new report by Euler Hermes. At its most impactful, this equates to 1.1% in lost GDP, with mineral and metal products, machinery and electrical equipment, transport equipment, chemicals and textiles likely to be the hardest hit sectors. Read more →
CEPA or CPTPP? An Overview of UK-Japan Trade
The UK and Japan are major investors in each other’s economies, ranking fifth and sixth respectively for inward foreign direct investment. TFG heard from Sir David Wright, Former UK Ambassador to Japan, focusing on the UK’s Free Trade Agreement with Japan, referred to as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Read more →
Follow the Digital Silk Road: China’s approach
How is China using technology to build the technical and financial infrastructure for the ambitious Belt and Road Initiatives. We heard from trade expert Eugenio Reggianini, who discussed the work of China’s Blockchain Service Network “BSN” and the Digital Currency Electronic Payment system “DCEP”. Read more →
Kharon and Accuity announce a partnership
Kharon and Accuity announced a partnership that aims to allow organizations to better manage sanctions-related risk in their customer and transaction screening operations. With this partnership, Kharon sanctions-related risk data can now be used with the Firco suite of financial crime screening solutions from Accuity. Read more →
USTDA and TDB sign an MOU to boost business between US private sector and TDB member states
TDB and the USTDA have signed a MoU with the purpose of advancing cooperation in select economic sectors between US private sector and TDB Member States. The agreement establishes a framework to facilitate the co-financing of transactions in TDB Member States in energy, transportation, ICT, healthcare and agribusiness through a variety of financing structures. Read more →
