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China, the world's top wheat and rice consumer, will issue the same tariff import quotas for grains and cottons in the year 2014 as they did in 2013. The wheat import quotas are at 9.6 million tones, corn at 7.2 million tones, rice at 5.3 million tones, and cotton at 894,000 tones. The low tariff-rate is 1 percent while grains imported without the quota allocation would be charged a 65 percent import duty.The tariff import quotas is imposed in the hope to help chinese farmers and to also levy high import duties on agriculture products. However, due to its agreement with World Trade Organization, China is still obliged to allow imports with lower duties. This article clearly connects to the topic of protectionism. Here, the Chinese government hopes to help its domestic agriculture industry by limiting imports. This imposition of quotas will lower the imports which would increase the amount of local production, therefore increasing more revenue for the domestic producers. Here, we can also see the role of WTO arranging trade among countries. Here the obligations create equality between China market and its import countries.

Japan's trade deficit increases in October as increase in imports exceed increase in exports to the US and China. Over the past years, weakening yen has helped promote exports, but also increases the cost for imports. The increase in cost for imports, such as crude oil, helped widen trade deficit. This shows the relationship between the current account and the exchange rate. Japan is currently going through a balance trade of goods and services deficit. This results in downward pressure on the exchange rate of the currency as there is an increase in the supply of yen due to increase in imports.

This article focuses on the trade deficit of Japan. Japan's trade deficit nearly doubled in October, as growth in imports outpaced robust increases in exports to the U.S. and China, the Finance Ministry reported Wednesday. There are several factors that led to trade deficit. Firstly, the weakening of the yen over the past year had its significant impact on imports and exports. After meltdown of the nuclear power plant in 2011, Japan has faced loss of the generation capacity, therefore forcing Japan to import natural gas and oil. Overall, weakening in the Japanese yen over the past year has helped exports, but it has also increased the cost of imports.However, the exports are not as stable as they could be. Slowdown in economic growth of China has led to decrease in demand for Japanese exports.Overall the article talks about the details of the trade deficit of Japan.

This article is of great interest to us for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it is filled to the brim with information regarding the need for import substitution, providing us with a real-world example in Pakistan. Also, it is important because it discusses debt and the looming possibility of defaulting on debt, which is something that has become a hot-button issue in the US economy as of late, given the importance of the debt ceiling.

This is an article of interest because it hits on a variety of things that we have and are continuing to study: import tariffs, the WTO, global trading in general, and the effects that each nation's actions have on one another.

This article raises awerness of the potencial risks that protectionism polices, import tariffs in this case, might have on the economy. If the WTO talks fail and Ukraine increases import tariffs it could have huge consequences with its trading partners as the local firms of the trading partners will suffer heavy losses, potencially leading to that specific export sector closing, which in time would effect the economic growth of the exporting country/countries. That is why there always has to be a balance with protectionism policies, iit must both benefit the importer and exporter

I have chosen this article because it is really related to our current topic of economic development. It is an article about how the change in the Indonesian law will allow the government to impose import substitution and thus reduce the reliance of the Indonesian economy on the imports from foreign countries. This may be very positive for the Indonesian economy because it will force domestic producers to be more efficient and employ more factors of production, what will probably lead to economic growth and decrease in unemployment.

With the implementation of the newly approved Industrial Law, Indonesia will have a strong legal base to promote import substitution as well as downstream industries in efforts to reduce the manufacturing sector's heavy reliance on imports of components and machinery. With the new industrial law the manufacturing sector was expected to grow by up to 6.8 percent and create 400,000 new jobs in 2014. The import substitution will have a profound effect and help the economy grow and develop.

The fall of imports have reduced Lebanon's balance of payments deficit from $1,932.1 millions US dollars to $675.2 US dollars. Movement of imports and exports are the most significant variable affecting the balance of payments. The slowdown of Lebanon's economic activity results in lower imports and therefore lowering the deficits in the balance of payments. Imports to Lebanon is usually higher than its exports, but this had changed in 2013. Lebanon's exports of banking, educational and health services have increased. Deposit inflows had increased by 11 percent compared to last year. This article clearly relates to the Balance of Payments. Here, Lebanon's movement of goods in and out of its country pay a major role in determining the Balance of Payments. Obviously, these imports and exports are a part of the current account, which includes the balance of trade in goods (visible trade balance) and balance of trade in services (invisible balance). Lebanon sees an increase in services, which means that there could be an improve balance of trade in services.

This is quiet a good example of how countries defend themselves from imports. In this specific case the USSR has haulted imports from Lithuanian of dairy imports, turning up pressure on the EU. Its haulted the trade because it fears that the imported goods arent up to quality or standard, but its also a strategical move as nearly 85% of all eastern blocs dairy exports go to Russia which would affect Russia's own local dairy production. This hault in imports creates loses for the overseas firms and alows Russian local firms to recover and gain the upper hand. Although its portrayed as a safety measure in the article i think its more a strategical move towards upping the Russian dairy industry!

It is an article about fish trade between South Korea and Japan. The korean government want to ban the import of fish from Japan because they are afraid of the radioactive water leaks from the Fukushima reactor. This ban on the the fish import from Japan will have an important effect on consumers from Korea because Korean consumers will have a smaller choice of fish to buy and the prices from the local producers may be higher. It will also have effect on the Japanese market because the demand for fishes will decrease and Japanese producers will be probably forced to reduce the production.

This article talks about how the trade deficit in Lebanon has fallen $2.8 Billion because of a drop in imports. This is a perfect example of how current account plays an important role in Internal Economics. Lebanon has previously had a reputation for importing many goods and this has caused them to have a very big Trade Deficit. However, recently reports have shown that they have drastically reduced their imports. This has resulted in them lowering their Trade Deficit, although they still remain some $14 million dollars below a balanced Trade.

This article tells us that the trade deficit (the level of imports exceeds the ones of exports) in the U.S has been a constant issue, however as we can read, the article states that the trade deficit has narrowed more than expected to 43.2 billion instead of 43.5 billion, this is the smallest deficit ever since January 2010, when the deficit was 51.9 billion. One of the factors that have contributed to this change is the great and significant drop in oil imports.

It is an article about the Nigerian government that has banned the importation of foreign currency in order to protect the Nigerian currency. It is worth to point out that there were indications that the latest move was sequel to the bank's withdrawal of the operating licenses of 20 Bureaux de Change found to have purchased and sold huge sums of dollars with no documentation to show details of the transactions. The low value of the Nigerian currency has affecting negatively the society because more domestic producers are only accepting the dollar as a means of payment. The government reports that the continued import of dollars would have a devastated effect on the Nigerian economy because it would gradually become dorallized.

Canada's economy seems to have taken a hit as housing, jobs and exports fell. First there was a 21,900 jobs loss in January plus a 58,000 decrease in Canadians looking for work. In addition, exports fell 2.1%, exports to the US alone dropped, 4 points and imports fell as well. Furthermore a 19% reduction in the housing industry topped Canada's misfortune these past 2 months. Many Canadians are questioning the actions of the conservative government as economic growth is slowing to a crawl.

I think that you have chosen a very nice and interesting article because it's related to our actual topics. Is a good example about the importance of the exchange rates in the exports. If a country's exchange rate becomes stronger, then this makes the country's exports relatively more expensive to foreigners. According to the law of demand, this will cause the quantity of exports to fall. Another think to highlight is the increase of the unemployment rate, this will probably decrease the consumption because However, if people expect economic conditions to worsen then they are likely to reduce their consumption today in order to save for the future. In brief i think that it's a great article to talk about the aggregated demand, macroeconomic and the monetary policies.

I find this article particularly interesting because i never knew that Canada was suffering so much from the recession. Since it states in the article that 21,900 jobs were lost means that the household cinsumption must be very low a resulting in a low agregate demand, and since the agregate demand is low firms gain less proffit and therefore have to cut costs which in this case would be workers.

This article gives an example of how the value of the currency may benefit the economy but also affect the economy in the short and long run. Venezuela has faced food shortages in the past years, so the government decided to devalue its currency, in order to ease this shortages that are progressively increasing. However, it is expected that this measure will increase inflation and eventually weaken the economy more than it already is. As bolivars are worth less, then less American dollars can be exchanged, affecting the economy and the shortages becauseless imports can be purchased, and some of these imports are really essential (e.g. cornmeal, chicken, sugar, etc), and as it is stated Venezuela is really dependant on imports. This is a perfect example of how a weak currency may be positive yet really negative at the same time.

This article presents a very good explanation what is income elasticity and how it may affect producers choices and sales. The article includes four main parts: types of products, types of customers, product life cycle and determing income elasticity. In the section "Types of products" author points how small businessses and luxury items' producers are affected by people's income, and how can they improve sales. Second section talks about targeting of the customers, for example some companies may focus on people with high-income, so consumers are not sensitive to the changes in price. Product Life Cycle section talks about aging of the product and appearing of the substitutes, and the ways of overcoming that problems, attracting consumers. And the last part of an article describes how to determine an income elasticity of demand. It is a good article that helps to increase understanding.

Pollution from the Motiva refinery in Norco, Louisiana has been a major pollutant in the region since 2005, and it doesn't show signs of stopping. There have been 301 reported cases of accidents in 2011 and many more unreported. The firm may be only concerned with its marginal private costs and have no intention in even dealing with the marginal social costs caused by the negative externality. The government must intervene and cease this crime; the injustice towards its community, society and the environment.

I didn't heard about this case before. I find it ironic because USA with their great judiciary don't have methods to fight with companies like Motiva. We can ask ourselves who is worst a murderer who kills one person and is sentenced to death or a company who is killing hundreds of humans beings. The oil is very important in our live, we need it every day but we must ask as where is the limit? what is more important a human being or using a car? We have to eliminate negative externalities like pollution because if we don't do anything then we will destroy the world because we have infinite wants (this is the sad reality).

In this article the author talks about the slow down in the economic growth of 16 leading emerging markets. Earlier compare to the Eurozone countries, UK and the US, the economic growth of those 16 countries was far higher. After this short period of stagnation, the world economists ask whether the growth, which depends a lot on exports, will increase or not. It weather will "wobble along, buffeted by worries in the developed world"; or temporary stop and then "bring back the days of the strong growth". Right now, the world economy is in the state of the recovery, in the past it went through the recession that started in 2008 and the trough. The fall in indicators mostly stopped, and the economic health very slowly continues to recover from the past.

"The index covers 16 leading emerging markets, including India, Brazil and China, which all saw their rate of growth fall. Rates of economic growth in these countries have been far higher than in developed nations, often coming in at about 10% a year." I think that the author is trying to say that Brazil in China have the highest rates of economic growth and not UK and the US. The exports in these two countries are very important; China is the country which more products export in the world. Their economic growth is slowing because of the recession in the other counties where the consumption has decrease and the people try to save money so the imports of products from China is not so high as it would be in a period of economic growth in all the world. I think that only in few countries the economy started to recover from the recession, in most of the economies are in stagnation. This suggest us the probably the worst part of the recession is behind us and the economies will start to recover, however these fluctuations in economic activity do not follow a mechanical or predictable periodic pattern so we can´t be sure when the recovery will start.

Slovakia will miss their budget target this year as the GDP Growth has slowed down. They have been hurt from slowing demand from their western peers because slovakia is a high exporting country. The expected growth has dropped to 0.9 from 1.4. This article shows us how important it is to have a balance import and export trade system with other nations. Due to the lack of demand in exports from the western part of the world, slovakia is struggling with economic growth.

I found a similar article today in a Spanish newspaper and I decided to blog it in bookmark because it is about economics and politics. So I looked for the same article in English and here it is. It is very interesting because it is short, concrete and very actual. It is about Mariano Rajoy, talking about the recession. He thinks that is very important to be united, coordinated and that Countries that can afford stimulus policies should implement them, while other nations should focus on reducing their budget deficits. Also he said that is very important that the Latin countries must avoid protectionist policies. I wonder how the conference in Santiago will end because they will determine the future economic policies.

This article clearly shows the way price and taxes changes the demand on tobacco. It gives us a good description of that products. So after that article we can conclude that tobacco is not that price sensitive. And attempts of the government to reduce the number of consumers by increasing taxes did not really work. The conclusion of the article makes it really clear and easy to understand: "From the above discussion it is evident that the price of elasticity of value is an important measure of the changes that will occur when a tax is imposed on tobacco products, this value is important in that it can help in determining the appropriate tax value that should be imposed in order to reduce tobacco consumption. Taxes on the other hand should be fair and depending on the price elasticity value of tobacco products certain groups in the economy may be unfairly taxed whereby poor individuals in the economy may have a greater tax burden than higher income individuals."

This article talks about the trade surplus of Germany. According to one German worker's statement, Germans work hard to make all their exports. However, the data shows that Germany makes as much exports as the US, but it imports much less. Therefore, Germany has faced a surplus, while the US has a trade deficit. It has been suggested that Germany should decrease their surplus, not through decrease of the exports, but through increase in imports. Increase in exports from other countries would lead to improvement of the economies of other countries like Spain, France, etc.