International Trade and the Gulf-Asia Economic Relations - Research Paper Example

Primary Research paper on the International Trade and the Gulf-Asia economic relations Introduction International trade is exchange of capital, goods, and services between countries. This type of trade gives the consumer the chance to practice the effect of international trade by providing goods such as food, clothes, oil, currencies and services such as tourism, banking, and transportation from different countries. International Trade have many important benefits, for instance, enhancing the domestic competitiveness, taking advantage of international trade technology, increasing sales and profits, extending sales potential of the existing products, maintaining cost competitiveness in the domestic market, enhancing potential for expansion the businesses, gaining a global market share, reducing dependence on existing markets and stabilizing seasonal market fluctuation Gulf-East Asia relations have grown rapidity over the last decade making most extensive inter-regional ties in the economic sphere. The massive flow of trade and investment capital between the two regions, Gulf-East Asia cooperation has become an important layer of dynamic activity within the global economy Methodology The method used in my primary research was oral interview where the Ministry of Foreign Trade was the best target since it has different departments under the Deputy Undersecretary for Foreign Trade Affairs that related to my purpose and topic. Scope The targets of my study were the following departments the Foreign Trade Policy, Trade Negotiations & WTO, International Trade Organizations, Analysis & Trade Information and Trade Promotions. In my study I targeted Mr. Ali Mohsin Al Hamili, the minister for the ministry of foreign trade who had served for 30 years as I felt that he had vast information in my area of study. The data collected must enable this paper to analyze the UAE and East Asia relations, the nature of these relations, the reasons why Asia and Gulf should look more closely into the benefits they could derive from further and closer cooperation Collected Data The Interview I interviewed Mr. Ali Mohsin Al Hamili, a 65 year old male having a work experience of 30 years in foreign Trade as the minister hence he had vast information about the international trade. Interview was chosen as my method of data collection because there were no language barriers between the interviewer and the interviewee, the interviewee was willing and ready to satisfactory respond to my questions since having had such a big working experience the interviewee had all answers to my questions, on my side as a student I found it economical as no finances were required in carrying out the interview. Primary research questions and findings analysis The economy minister expects growth rate by 1.3 and inflation declaim by 3%, Economy Minister expected that UAE will record economic growth rate by 1.3% in this current year, due to global economic crisis impacts. UAE, Britain explore avenues of joint economic cooperation The UAE and Britain need to mobilize efforts for boosting joint economic cooperation, facilitating flow of investment and balanced increasing of trade exchange, UAE Minister of Economy H.E. Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri stressed here today. The two close trade partners, he told the first meeting of the joint economic ministerial committee, are also demanded to open up new avenues of cooperation in the sector of small and medium scale enterprises. This strategic meeting falls within the context of the UAE government policy to link with the international community in order to further leverage in the global economy map. Dubai Airport Free-Zone discusses investment opportunities with Irish investments Dubai Airport Free-Zone announced that business Irish delegation officially visited Dubai Airport Free-Zone to discuss cooperation and to be aware of services besides facilities which are provided by this area. Dubai Holding intends to raise Al Kawthar Fund capital to $ 5 billion Dubai Holding intends to attract investments from the Middle-East investors to raise Al Kawthar Fund of gold investment according to Shariah. TAQA intends to invest $ 250 million in Iraq Executive-Head of TAQA said that company intends starting construction works in terms of power station, in which its powers reaches 500 MW in Baghdad. UAE businesswomen council positively interacts with investment opportunities Board of Director Head in UAE businesswomen council assured that council always pays attention on positive and prominent interaction with all relevant departments. Al Hilal and Dana Gas expect investments by $ 60 billion in Iraqi gas city Al Anbar Governor in Western Iraq said that Al Hilal as well as Dana Gas oil companies seek for establishing gas city in this province to attract investments worth $ 60 billion. Winsoft inaugurates HQ in Dubai by 2010 Winsoft that is specialized in bilingual software production intends to support its occurrence in the Middle-East by inaugurating a representative office in Dubai by 2010. Energy gulf contracts by $ 60 billion till 2012 and 1/3 for UAE Regional Director at French Technip Company of Oil and Engineering assured that energy contracts by $ 60 billion (at least) submitted in terms of competition at 4 major markets in the gulf area. Board of Directors Member at Mubadala Company said that company looks for prospective investments in Asia like China. Investment Capital needed in the world for investments in the 21st century is likely to come from Asia, particularly East Asia. As it is of the approximately US$315 billion invested around the world in 1995, approximatelyUS$68 billion came from Asia. This happened through deliberate policy of thrift. The East Asian countries are, generally, high savers. For example, Japan saves 31 percent of GDP, China 40 percent, Malaysia 41 Percent and Singapore 51 percent. Considering the top ten countries with the higher reserves excluding gold, the first five are Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are from Asia, and all of them rank above the united State as shown in (Table 3). The Gulf will tap into this cash for development of human resources, communication, information technology and productivity in the Gulf. East Asian labor has a mix of entrepreneurial skills and relevant knowledge of overseas markets is a perfect opportunity for Gulf States to form a strategic partnership for investment in the Gulf and third world countries which offer comparative advantage. Table 3 Ranked by Reserves, Excluding Gold Country Amount ( in US$ billions) 1 Japan 222.7 2 China 122.8. 3 Taiwan 87.8 4 Hong Kong 85.3 5 Singapore 80.4 6 German 78.0 7 Brazil 62.3 8 United States 55.1 9 Italy 47.9 10 Britain 35.9 The major UAE Investors are; Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Mubadala Boruj Emaar Dubai Ports World RAK Ceramics Dubai National Air Travel Agency Belhasa International Jumeirah Group Al Awael Holding Advanced Technology Investment Company Economic Zones World Tijari Trade Major Sectors for UAE investment: Investment in oil and natural gas Investment in the petrochemical sector Investment in the production of high-quality calcium-doped petroleum coal Investment in real-estate development Investment in the production of ceramics and pottery Investment in seaborne operations, ports and containers Investment in the production of polyethylene and polypropylene Investment in the area of transfer and exchange funds Investment in the area of wholesale and retail trade Investment in tourism and travel Investment in aerial transport of goods and people Investment in operating and developing industrial and economical areas Companies in the UAE: 3,000 Commercial Agencies in the UAE: 106 Trade Marks Registered in the UAE: 1,132 Asia and the Gulf should look more closely into the benefits they could derive from further and closer cooperation in that Gulf Asia is an attractive and beneficial partner for many reasons which include the elopement of the pacific century to earlier is likely to produce astonishing developments where a Chinese think tank has concluded that by 2030, china’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will reach U$ 131,110 billion for the United States, assuming a US growth of 2 to 2.5 percent. Presently, almost 20 percent of the world trade is generated in East Asia region. In 20 to 30 years’ time East Asia will totally be transformed, with a GDP that will be 40 percent the world’s GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP), if the present pace of economic growth continues in the region. Therefore, East Asia will become such a thriving community that the rest of the world whether willing or not. The increasing Asia economic weight will also bring with it greater influence in world affairs. The following is the information about Japan: Bilateral Investments Major UAE Investors Abu Dhabi Investment Authority International Petroleum Investment Company Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Drydocks World Invest AD The Advanced Technology Investment Company Major Sectors for UAE investment in Japan include: Investment in petrol and natural gas Investment in shipping Investment in advanced technology Companies in the UAE: 101 Commercial Agencies in the UAE: 130 Trade Marks Registered in the UAE: 3,680 Bilateral Agreements and Committees: Agreement between the Abu Dhabi Gas Liquefaction Company (ADGAS) Tokyo Electric Power for the supply of natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas 1973. ASEAN & GCC Of ASEAN governments hold their annual information summit. As noted earlier the senior ASEAN leaders also meet with their counterparts from other East Asian countries, the European Unions and the US through the annual ARF meetings. The APEC leaders meeting bring together the Heads of Government from ASEAN and other member countries, including the United States of Europe Unions. The GCC, by contrast has largely confined itself to a domestic agenda protecting and safeguarding interest of issues of common concern to member nations in a volatile and turbulent regions caught in devastating wars. Briefly sectoral relationship covers cooperation in certain economic and functional aspects, a full dialogue partnership, on the other hand involves regular consultations at all levels of the leadership and institutionalized cooperation in all major areas of interest. Cooperation on investment, maritime security and cultural exchange offer good prospects. TRADE Although Asia accounts for more that 46 percent of the Gulf’s trade, the Gulf does not figure very big in total Asia trade. For East Asia, trade with the Gulf amounts to 3.2 percent. Quantitative insignificance, however, belies the qualitative importance (i.e. Gulf oil). East Asia thirst for oil is likely to increase given its growth. Besides being an assured market for Gulf oil in the face of its stagnating demand. Asia’s expanding market has opportunities for increasing non-oil exports from the Gulf. The Gulf States should not miss out. The ethical issues that were addressed in this research include The principle of voluntary participation provides that respondents are not coerced into participating in research. Informed consent this means that prospective participants in research must be informed fully about the dealings and risks implicated in research and give their participation consent. Ethical standards require that the participants are not put in risky situations by the researcher after their participation in the research. Participant’s confidentiality – must be guaranteed in all research where they are assured of identity information will not be availed to anyone outside in the study. The principle of anonymity is the stricter standard which basically implies that throughout the study the participant will remain anonymous which is a stronger guarantee of privacy. Clear ethical standards and principles may exist, but sometimes carrying out an accurate research goes against the rights of potential participants. There are no set of standards which are able to anticipate every ethical circumstance. Furthermore, there must be a procedure to make sure that researchers consider all appropriate ethical issues in formulating research plans. Most institutions and organizations have come up with an Institutional Review Board (IRB) so as to address such needs. A personnel panel reviews grants proposals concerning ethical implications and decides on the need for additional actions taken to provide the safety and rights of participants. IRBs assist in protection of both the organization and the researcher in possible legal implications of neglecting to tackle important ethical issues of participants, by reviewing proposals for research. In concluding my study the data analysis will be done using interviews as social texts. Were discourse analysts are not interested in processes taking place either in individuals’ minds or in reality. Concentration is on the regularities of language use: the kinds of descriptions and accounts of a topic are possible, the kinds of evaluations they are based on, how different modes of accounting construct different versions of the topic or produce different kinds of truths, and what do these versions accomplish. It is seen that discourses are “historical facts,” but the speakers using them, topics to which they are applied, and attitudes towards them can, and do, change continuously. The essential assumption of interview analysis is that interview answers are manufactured out of pre-existing linguistic resources with properties of their own, “much as a bridge is put together using girders, concrete and cable”. Historically-formed discourses are repositories of starting points, definitions and themes that position the speakers as they give meanings to phenomena. Many researchers find this idea objectionable, because it seems to render individual subjects into “opinion automats.” People’s change of attitudes from moment-to-moment and from setting-to-setting, what is left to give direction to their actions? When the idea that discourses produce both the spoken matter and the speaking subjects are critically analyzed is no more objectionable than well-taken critique of private languages. In the interview I employed culturally strong interpretations about the societal function of World Trade Organization as an institution which enabled my respondent to present his views, argue for them, and defend them in an effective and convincing way. In this process, the participant allowed himself to embody different kinds of persons, or, to put it more precisely, the subject positions offered by discourses provided to him with varying identities. The interviewee was able to align herself against World Trade Organization wanting to guide tastes. The same interviewee aligned herself with participants in the World Trade States who could encourage other States to reach for goals higher than their present aspirations. Similarly, the respondent first took distance from a trade perspective by saying that member States make the World Trade organization to be what it is. This respondent then talked about “the members of World Trade Organization” to make the important decisions and explain them to the others. This kind of navigation between different subject positions, or temporary identities and categories of person, strongly clashes with the traditional view that qualitative research should aim at capturing the speakers’ authentic intentions, experiences, meanings, or behavior. This is based on a conception of individuals holding a static set of attitudes, values, or knowledge structures across different occasions, unaffected by local conversational settings or cultural resources of interpretation. Discourse analysis emphasizes that subjects are not as unidimensional, sovereign, and static as is commonly assumed, since in different social contexts and speech situations the individual uses variable linguistic resources and moves between different discourses quite naturally and skillfully. The starting point of discourse analysis is that meanings, values, and ethical principles are not individual creations, but entities that people create together in communication and social action. This view of language, mind, meaning and selfhood is dialogic, emphasizing that we are not “self-contained” selves, but “owe our character as the individuals we are to our living, embodied relations to others people around us: To be communicate means for another, and through the other, for oneself. A person has no inner, sovereign region; he is always and wholly on the boundary; looking inside himself, looking in another person’s eyes or using the eyes of another person.” It may seem irrelevant whether the research object is defined as the subject’s sense making or linguistic practices. Surely, talk expresses what is in an individual’s mind. In normal life people do have to take action basing on the assumption that language straightforwardly and accurately describes both mental events and the outside reality. However, language is not just a tool to be taken up and put down at will, when we have something to communicate. Language is also an indispensable part of the subject’s self-understanding, since words are used in every act of interpretation. The words of language are always half someone else’s: when subjects use words, they formulate themselves and their thoughts from the point of others, and their community. Words become speakers’ “own” as words serve their own purposes; include their own intentions in them. Individuals cannot, however, invent new words to express their intentions. Same expressions that have been used countless times before have to be used. For instance, libraries are routinely defined as providers of education and recreation, even if at closer reflection people probably do not think that serious reading could not be entertaining, or that entertainment could not educate. The words called for citation marks to be set around them. “Language’s own talk” is, however, supreme in its power compared to individual speakers’ views, since pre-existing conceptualizations and ways of classifying phenomena have to be used even by speakers whose conscious intention it is to oppose them. Individuals are not able to modify the resources of interpretation freely, since they are limited by the episteme of a specific phase of culture and history. However, discourses, like individual subjects, are variable, conflicting, and continuously changing and developing. Limitations of the study The major limitations incurred are; The quality of the questions determines the quality of the information gathered. The interviewer is not supposed to add or subtract questions. A lot of time is required for pre-planning of the interview. The format of questionnaire makes it hard for the researcher to examine complex issues and opinions. Even with the use of open-ended questions, the depth of answers provided by the respondent tends to be limited compared to other research methods. There is limited extent for the questions for any detailed or in depth answering of the questions by the respondent. It is the possible that the existence of the researcher may affect the way various questions are answered by the respondent, thereby biasing the responses known as the interview effect. List of questions 1. Why did the UAE join the WTO? 2. What are the benefits of the UAE being a member of the WTO? 3. Which countries are the UAE main partners in East Asia? 4. What are the bilateral investments between these countries and UAE? 5. Why should Asia and the Gulf look more closely into the benefits they could derive from further and closer cooperation? In order to implement my primary research I will carry out an oral interview with the president of the ministry of foreign affairs in his office, the appoint of the interview will be made two weeks prior to the interview will go together with the questionnaire so as to give him an ample time in organizing his schedule and in collecting the relevant information. The interview will be done orally. And I will be jotting notes at the same time. For this interview time taken for each question will range between ten minutes and 30 minutes as vast information must be gathered, thus the interview will take at most two and a half hours. CONCLUSION The interview questions assisted me in receiving vast information about my field of study. I enjoyed doing this assignment because lot of knowledge was acquired I also had fun while doing it. Possessing general knowledge in world trade was good because I knew basically what I required to ask. James was of great help because he didn't mind answering all the questions for me; in fact, he said that he enjoyed doing it as well. The research carried out has given me a craving to learn more about the international trade and be informed about everything happening in the international market. I feel that the information will be beneficial not to me alone but to others who are interest in the international trade. References Kanaga, R. (1998). Asia and the Gulf: prospects for cooperation. Abu Dhabi: The Emirates for Strategic Studies and Research . Read More