The Centre for Social and Economic Progress hosted the launch of the Trade Sentinel: An Early Monitoring Mechanism for Trade Policy and Related Changes in South Asia co-founded by CSEP Senior Visiting Fellows Sanjay Kathuria and T.G. Srinivasan, on Thursday, March 07, 2024, 11:00 – 01:15 PM IST. Attendees  also joined online via Zoom. The webinar was streamed live on YouTube.

About the event

South Asia has been late to globalise and hesitant to tap intra-regional trade. It has also been getting increasingly protectionist, despite already being the region with the highest average tariffs. There is no early monitoring mechanism for trade policy changes of South Asian countries. Such an early monitoring system is critically needed for South Asia, a laggard in trade integration.  The WTO trade reviews are infrequent (once every 5 years or so). The temporary trade barriers database maintained by the World Bank covers only temporary measures and is for a small set of countries (covers India and Pakistan) but stops at 2019.  

Trade Sentinel is an effort to fill important gaps in monitoring trade policy actions (in goods and services) of South Asian countries and aims to offer full and curated monitoring of trade policy changes as they occur, including tariff and non-tariff measures on imports, export controls, services restrictions and FDI policies. The program seeks to provide real-time alerts, trends and analysis of trade and investment policy changes in South Asian countries. The Sentinel is expected to be an important public good, free to access for all through a website and mobile app.

The Sentinel, which has been co-founded by Sanjay Kathuria and TG Srinivasan, has been made possible through the generous support of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), via its Regional Economic Programme Asia (SOPAS), and the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). 

The launch event will entail an overview presentation by the team and a demonstration of the key features of the trade sentinel, followed by a panel discussion with trade policy experts from the South Asian region. 

Welcome Address

Prerna Prabhakar is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). Prerna’s research primarily focuses on trade and industrial policies, and competitiveness. Prior to joining CSEP, she worked with the Council on Energy Environment and Water (CEEW) where she focused on understanding the linkages between sustainability and international trade. Prerna has also worked with the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on external sector issues, investment potential for Indian States/Union Territories as well as land policy matters. She has also worked on research projects with the University of Delhi, South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE), Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).

She has completed her PhD from the Department of Business Economics, University of Delhi. She has a postgraduate degree in Economics from TERI School of Advanced Studies (TSAS). She has published her research in Indian and international journals including Environmental Economics and Policy Studies. She regularly contributes opinion pieces to leading newspapers.

Introductory Remarks by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS)

Christian Echle is the Head of the Asia/Pacific Department of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. He was the Director of the foundation’s Political Dialogue Asia programme, based in Singapore, from June 2017 to February 2022. His first posting abroad was in Johannesburg, where he was responsible for KAS Media Africa, the regional programme in support of media freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa. Christian studied German literature, history, and sociology in Freiburg, Gothenborg and Munich. During this time, he was awarded a scholarship for promising young journalists at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. His journalistic work includes articles and pieces for Badische Neueste Nachrichten, Badische Zeitung and the German public broadcasters. He joined the foundation in 2007 as an online editor. His work focuses on the influence of social media on social and political opinion making, digital transformation, and cooperation with political parties. 

Trade Sentinel Unveiling by

T.G. Srinivasan is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi who has a career centered around trade, macroeconomics, and poverty reduction. Currently, his work is primarily oriented towards trade policy and economic relations within the South Asian region. He is a co-founder of the Trade Sentinel project, an innovative initiative aimed at developing early warning mechanisms for monitoring and analysing trade policy dynamics in South Asian countries.

Before joining the Centre, he has made significant contributions to the World Bank as a Senior Economist. During his tenure at the World Bank, he led poverty assessment work for countries like Jordan, Yemen, Nepal, and Bhutan. He also served as the country economist and played a crucial role in coordinating the World Bank’s global macroeconometric forecasting models. He worked in the Ministry of Finance in Oman, where he was involved in the development and implementation of the medium-term economic framework.

Discussants

• Selim Raihan is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and the Executive Director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM). He holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. Member of the Board of Directors, Global Development Network (GDN). He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK. He possesses vast expertise in empirical research on international trade, economic growth, poverty, labour market, macroeconomic policies, political economy, and climate change issues. He has published a number of journal articles, books, book chapters and working papers. He is the editor of Thinking Aloud, a monthly digest from SANEM. He regularly writes columns for leading English and Bengali dailies in Bangladesh. He has worked for several national and international organisations, including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, UNDP, UNESCAP, UNCTAD, IFPRI, the Commonwealth Secretariat, FAO, European Commission, ILO, IDRC, DFID, etc. He has led and been a member of several regional and international research projects on trade and regional integration issues. His latest edited volume from Cambridge University Press is Is the Bangladesh Paradox Sustainable?.
• Paras Kharel is an economist working in the areas of international trade and development. He has been with South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics, and Environment (SAWTEE)—a Kathmandu-based think tank—since 2007 and is currently its Executive Director. He has a PhD in Economics (University of Melbourne) with a specialisation in international trade and applied microeconometrics. Kharel’s research interests and publications span regional integration, gains from trade, application of structural gravity models, World Trade Organization issues, export competitiveness, aid for trade, linkages between trade policy and industrialization, structural transformation, trade and development issues of least-developed and landlocked countries, and migration and remittances. His publications include two edited volumes on South Asian cooperation and integration and articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the Review of International Economics, International Economics, and East Asian Economic Review. His inputs are sought by government, the private sector and international development organisations. He has worked as a journalist for five years.
• Prabir De is a Professor at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi. He has over three and half decades of full-time research and teaching experience in India and abroad. He works in the field of international economics and has research interests in international trade and development. He has been conducting policy research for the Government of India and several national and international organisations, including UN agencies and multilateral development banks. He graduated in economics from the Scottish Church College in Kolkata; he has a Master’s in Economics from Calcutta University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He was a Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), Japan; Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI); Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP); and Visiting Senior Fellow of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). He has contributed several research papers to international journals and written books on trade and development. He is also the Founding Editor of the Journal of Asian Economic Integration, published by Sage, and the Journal of Land Ports and Border Economy, published by Routledge.
• Nikita Singla is an International Trade, Logistics, and Inclusion Specialist with 12 years of experience in South Asia. She has experience working across more than 40 ports in the South Asia region. She has been leading the Ministry of Finance’s Time Release Study—an annual assessment of cargo clearance at 15 ports in India for the last 5 years and conducted a similar trade facilitation assessment for the land ports in Bangladesh. She is a Consultant to the World Bank’s Trade, Transport and Regional Integration practices. She is also a Non-resident Scholar, South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, and a Visiting Fellow to Stimson Centre’s South Asia program.She is a member of the Advisory Council of TalentNomics India and sits on the board of experts at the Centre for Trade Excellence, Singapore. She is an engineer from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and Masters in International Economic Policy from Sciences Po Paris.
• Rameshore Khanal is Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies, a policy think tank in Kathmandu. He also teaches finance and accounting at the South Asian Institute of Management. A former Secretary of Nepal’s Ministry of Finance, he led reforms in government accounting and reporting, public procurement, and tax policy. He also served on the boards of Nepal Rastra Bank, Nepal Electricity Authority, Agricultural Development Bank, Nepal Telecommunication Corporation, and Nepal Airlines Corporation. Rameshore is a champion of advancing regional integration and cooperation in South Asia.
• Vaqar Ahmed is a former civil servant and currently the Joint Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). He has previously worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank Group, and the Ministries of Finance, Planning, and Commerce in Pakistan.He is a member of the USAID Investment & Trade Enhancement Advisory Group, an honorary Research Fellow at the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) Network and the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), and a member of the steering committee of Southern Voice. He is a member of the Federal Board of Revenue’s Resource Mobilization Commission and Board Member at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Board of Investment & Trade.He has served as a Visiting Faculty Member and researcher at various international institutes, including the University of Laval in Canada, the University of Le Havre in France, and the National University of Ireland. He was a recipient of the 2015 Young Leaders Fellowship award from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the 2021 Canadian Government’s grant for research on fiscal responses to COVID-19.He continues to publish on various aspects of international trade and finance, public finance, and private sector competitiveness. Oxford University Press (OUP) has published his books titled “Pakistan’s Agenda for Economic Reforms” and “Economy, Welfare, and Reforms in Pakistan”. He has edited a book volume published by FES Germany titled “Global Pakistan: Pakistan’s Role in the International System.”
• Anushka Wijesinha is an economist with experience in government, private sector, and think tanks. He is the co-founder/Director of an interdisciplinary public policy think tank, Centre for a Smart Future. Anushka is currently or has been an international consultant for advisory projects in Mongolia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Maldives, and Iran, with a focus on trade, investment, and export competitiveness. He is a member of the Governing Board of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Oversight Committee on Exports and FDI at the Presidential Secretariat. In previous roles, he served as Advisor to the Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade, as Chief Economist of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, and as Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka.In the private sector, Anushka has experience on several corporate boards in the financial services industry. In government, he has served on the Council of the National Innovation Agency and the Export Development Board.Anushka was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Innovation Ecosystems and was an Asia Foundation Development Fellow at the Korea Development Institute in Seoul. Anushka holds a Masters in Economics ffrom theUniversity of LLeeds, aBSc in Economics from University College London, and is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School’s ‘Leading Economic Growth’ executive programme.
• Mustafizur Rahman is Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka where he was previously the Executive Director. Earlier he taught at the University of Dhaka. He was educated at Moscow State University where he did his Ph.D., at Oxford University, UK and Warwick University, UK where he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow and at Yale University, USA where he was a Senior Fulbright Fellow. His recent works have focused on LDC graduation challenges and regional and global integration of Bangladesh. He has published widely in Bangladesh and abroad. He has served as a member of several national bodies set up by the Government of Bangladesh including the WTO Advisory Committee, Regulatory Reforms Commission and Core Committee on Connectivity with India. He was a member of the Panel of Economists for Sixth and the Seventh Five Year Plans and ‘Bangladesh Vision 2041’. He is a member of Dhaka University Senate and Board of Trustees of BRAC University. He is a Series Editor of South Asia Economic Policy Studies published by Springer.
• Subhashini Abeysinghe is an economist specialising in international trade. She is an expert on the Sri Lankan economy, private sector development, trade policy, WTO, regional trade agreements, ports, and logistics. In addition, her current research includes data-driven analysis of China’s economic engagement in Sri Lanka. Subhashini is currently the Director of Research at Verité Research, a research and strategy firm based in Colombo. She has been a senior economist for the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) for nearly ten years. She has also worked as a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the University of Colombo and Sir John Kotalawela Defence University in Sri Lanka.

Moderator

• Sanjay Kathuria is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at CSEP and co-founder of the Trade Sentinel. He has a vast experience of more than 40 years and is recognised as a pre-eminent thinker and commentator on economic development, growth and integration in South Asia. His research interests and writings have focused on South Asia, economic growth and development, industrial policy and competitiveness, trade and globalisation, regional integration, the economics of small states, and gender issues, among others.He is also Visiting Expert with the United States Institute of Peace. He teaches in both the US and India, as Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, and Visiting Faculty, Ashoka University. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington, DC.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.