Free trade is critical to growth but it will be difficult to convince governments of this when people are losing jobs in their economies, said UPS chairman and CEO Scott Davis, Business Times Singapore reported.
As an express freight company that has made major investments in Asia, the free and efficient flow of trade is important to UPS's business. Trade is openly supported when it creates jobs, but "when you lose jobs, you tend to see the worst incidents of politics", Davis said.
"And unfortunately, global trade is the most visible and convenient target, so all of us who see the connection between fair trade and future prosperity have to be visible and vocal in our support for enlightened trade policy."
He cited a recent report by independent policy think tank Global Trade Alert - that discriminatory trade laws outnumber liberalising trade laws by six to one and that governments are applying protectionist measures at a rate of 60 per quarter.
While this may be the case, the commercial world moves on and some regions such as the East Asian region are going out on their own to forge regional trade agreements that open markets and support cross-border supply chains.
Davis said that the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) is one example of the kind of holistic approach to trade that countries are looking at and which could join all 21 Asia-Pacific nations in future.
"We strongly advocate that the US attend these negotiations because we believe that TPP has the potential to be an agreement that reflects the realities of a changing world," he said.
Davis, however, remains "very bullish" on Asia and believes there are "fantastic opportunities" in intra-Asia trade. Indeed, he sees that much of the growth in the next 20 years would be in these trade routes.
Looking ahead at the upcoming peak holiday season, he said that the consensus forecast is that it would be flat this year. However, he added that the actual numbers may surprise on the upside because, with the advent of technology, the season has become much more compressed than in the past and actual performance may not be known till as late as the week before Christmas.
UPS is planning to raise rates for next year when it does its rate revisions at end-November/early-December. |
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Source: cargonewsasia
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