Free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties make privileges for and treatment of foreign direct investors legally binding. Thus, apart from the concerns of being able to capture the ''real'' financial and economic contribution of foreign direct investment inflows, FDI definitions are also about protecting the ''rights'' of the so-defined investors in the host country. Keeping this in mind, the article analyses India's current FDI policy and warns that if we define FDI within our national regulatory framework too broadly to allow instruments and flexibility that were earlier resisted, we would have already lost most of the leverage in investment negotiations at the regional and multilateral levels.

China's growing presence in Africa has led to arguments that the country is seeking to meet its growing requirements of primary products, including oil, by building a relationship reminiscent of a colonial past with many African countries. In this article, the authors examine what the evidence reveals about this relationship.

The depreciation of the US dollar has been closely bound up with the movement of oil prices, as world oil trade is typically denominated in dollars. Yet this relationship may now be under threat as the dollar continues to depreciate and the US economy tips into recession. This article examines how oil prices have changed with different numeraires, and considers the implications for the future of the oil-dollar nexus.

With the US economy clearly tipping into recession, international attention is now focussed on the extent to which China and India can create an alternative growth pole for the world economy through their increasing demand. In this article, the authors assess the potential for China to play such a role by analysing its trade pattern with developing Asia.

The stock market in Thailand collapsed after the government introduced limited market-based capital controls aimed at stalling the rapid appreciation of the Thai baht. The subsequent retreat by the government on the capital control measures raises serious questions about policy sovereignty in developing countries that have opened their financial markets to portfolio capital flows.

The mere creation of the much hailed Special Economic Zones would not necessarily change the trajectory of export growth from India by attracting exporting units, though it may increase production for the domestic market by large firms and transnationals with adverse implications for existing domestic producers. This will pave the way for a crude form of primitive accumulation of capital where private capital would make huge profits at the expense of the small property owner and the State, with limited benefits in the form of foreign exchange revenues.

The Reserve Bank of India has released the report of the special Committee on Fuller Capital Account Convertibility, which was constituted to revisit the issue of making the rupee convertible for capital account transactions. The recommendation of the FCAC committee to push ahead with capital account liberalisation, even in phases and with some caution, seems as unwarranted today as it was in 1997.

The uncompromising position taken by the US during the recent Geneva WTO talks is mainly because of their increasing reliance on bilateral FTAs. The suspension of the talks also has a larger message for India. Rather than being an instrument to win developing country support for an unequal deal, it is time India starts taking the side of the developing countries and truly represents their interests.

This article describes the proceeding of events in the recently concluded WTO Mini-Ministerial. Focusing on the issues taken up for discussion, it tries to investigate the reasons which lead to the suspension of talks and concludes with some lessons for developing countries.

The scorching pace of expansion in the exports of hi-tech manufactured products from China and software and IT-enabled services from India, has supported the view that 'knowledge capital' plays a crucial role in the growing global presence of these countries. This paper discusses the empirical basis for that assessment.

International capital markets have been very active in the past year, especially in terms of movements in and out of developing countries. This article examines the recent patterns in, and the implications of, the recent upsurge in global capital flows.

While the rise in the US interest rate and the global fall in metal prices have contributed to the recent stock market meltdown in India as well as globally, the market crash in India stands out both in its magnitude as well as its specific underlying causes. It has been precipitated primarily through heavy selling by foreign institutional investors.

The yet again missed deadline at the WTO negotiations signifies little loss for the developing world, since with current trends in global trade and global growth being patently inequalising, their potential gain from integration seem to be limited. Meanwhile the current stage of negotiations is marked by an attempt to widen the elite club to include developing countries like Brazil and India, and use them strategically to push for further integration.

It is generally perceived that the Paragraph 6 of the Hong Kong Ministerial declaration has taken some major strides towards disciplining all forms of export supports. This paper takes a look at the Paragraph 6 of the Hong Kong declaration and analyzes its implications for international agricultural trade.

In recent years, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have proliferated especially for developing countries, yet they remain largely secret and outside the realm of public scrutiny and audit. In this edition of MacroScan, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh discuss the current and potential implications of these BITs.

The recent period has witnessed an explosion of imports in India. This paper examines the pattern of imports over the past decade and a half and discusses the implications of import penetration for domestic output and employment.

The government's use of the GDP growth figures to whitewash the nature of the stock market speculative boom is to not only justify the ''inability'' to provide adequately for much-needed social and capital expenditures in the name of ''fiscal prudence''; it can also use the ruse that liberalisation has delivered India's ''heady'' economic performance to press ahead with liberalisation measures that allies and supporters of the current government oppose.

Recent increases in exports have been hailed as indicating the emergence of India as an internationally competitive economy. In this article, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh examine recent patterns of external trade, in particular exports, and consider the implications.