Few products became as emblematic of 2020 as masks, gloves, and gowns. Personal protective equipment (PPE)—once a niche concern for hospitals and industry—suddenly found itself at the center of global supply chains and public anxiety. For those seeking to track how manufacturing adapted to unprecedented demand, the challenge wasn’t just in counting boxes shipped, but […]
International Trade Council welcomes the decision of the United States to drop the proposed 10% tariff on certain types of Canadian aluminum. The tariff was announced by President Donald Trump just last month, citing a flood of under-priced metal into the country. After determining that imports were likely to decline after an earlier surge, the […]
The U.K. Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018, which came into force in September 2019, represented what many policymakers considered a significant, if somewhat understated, step toward greater corporate transparency. While not as headline-grabbing as some of the government’s other corporate governance reforms, these regulations introduced a key requirement: that beneficial ownership information (BOI) for companies […]
When the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020 was signed into law in December 2019, the broader public attention largely fell on its topline budget allocations and headline procurement programs. Yet beneath these more conspicuous elements, the legislation embedded provisions that arguably carried equal—if not greater—long-term significance for federal contractors. Among […]
Financial crime, and money laundering in particular, remains one of the more persistent and elusive threats to economic stability. It’s a world where obfuscation is the rule, not the exception. Criminals are inventive; they learn, they adapt. Law enforcement and regulators, meanwhile, must continuously refine their tools and methods just to keep pace. Amid this […]
Forecasting sectoral growth remains both an art and a science, even in our era of vast databases and advanced analytics. While aggregate macroeconomic forecasts—GDP, inflation, labor participation—tend to capture headlines, a great deal of economic dynamism actually plays out at the level of individual sectors. For this reason, longitudinal data organized by International Standard Industrial […]
The International Trade Council (ITC) welcomes the news that the European Union has agreed to eliminate tariffs on US lobster, a key priority of President Donald Trump, in exchange for the US halving import taxes on some $160m worth of European goods, including cigarette lighters and certain crystal glassware. The agreement is the first tariff […]
Tourism is a powerful force in modern economies—fueling job creation, entrepreneurship, and regional development. But the real impact of visitor spending is often hard to measure. Too frequently, analysis focuses on headline arrivals or hotel occupancy, missing the broader ripple effects across restaurants, transport, entertainment, and retail. To address this gap, economists have turned to […]
The Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA), in force since 2015, has by now become a familiar fixture in the compliance landscape of Canada’s mining, oil, and gas industries. But if the legislation’s first years were marked by firms simply finding their feet with its basic requirements, 2020 brought a noticeable shift in both tone […]
There’s a tendency, even among seasoned economists, to treat ISIC codes as though they exist in a vacuum—neatly separating sectors, sorting economic activity into convenient boxes. But in reality, the landscape of industry is far more layered. Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, wrapped in a range of legal structures that, if we’re honest, […]
The International Trade Council announces that the European Union has formally adjusted its trade relationship with Cambodia, moving away from its preferential trade programme, the Everything but Arms (EBA) agreement. The decision, resulting from Cambodia’s persisting systemic human rights violations, reinstates custom duties on a significant proportion of Cambodia’s exports to the EU. Under the […]
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is fiercely competitive. Every country wants its share of new factories, technology parks, or corporate headquarters. Yet success rarely comes from simply lowering taxes or launching glossy ad campaigns. Instead, the most effective investment promotion agencies (IPAs) have learned to speak the language of both global investors and local economic realities. […]
The shock of early 2020 hit the restaurant industry with a speed and force that left analysts scrambling for answers almost as fast as owners scrambled to survive. Streets that once buzzed with activity fell silent. Headlines told part of the story, but policymakers and researchers needed something firmer than anecdotes: actual numbers, mapped in […]
The U.K. Environment Bill’s interruption in 2019 left many manufacturers and policymakers in a curious state of limbo. When the Bill was prorogued in September of that year, expectations had already been set. Draft texts, consultations, and government statements had outlined what was to come. The broad strokes of the anticipated waste and resource-efficiency provisions […]
The International Trade Council (ITC) is concerned by the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to strike down the EU-US Privacy Shield, which governed the transfer of EU citizens’ data to the United States. The ITC recognizes the potential negative consequences of this decision on transatlantic trade worth $7.1 trillion ( £5.6tn), and […]
When Canada’s federal government launched its consultation on the proposed Modern Slavery Act in January 2020, few expected the volume—or the complexity—of feedback that would pour in from corporate actors, industry groups, and civil society. The submissions portal, opened with the goal of soliciting practical views on due-diligence thresholds and reporting requirements, quickly became a […]