RIS Blog

Dr Dinesh Kumar, Research Associate, RIS    With the acceleration of digitalization of the global economy, more and more digitisable products are leaving their tangible forms and are being traded online. This technology-enabled trade in digitisable products, particularly electronic transmission, got significant expansion even during the ongoing COVID19 pandemic. Given the way new technologies such as 3D printing (Remote Additive Manufacturing), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) etc, are unfolding around the world economy, more and more products are being traded digitally. The current practice of moratorium on electronic transmission i.e., not imposing custom tariffs, has considerable implications for developing countries in relation to custom revenue; fiscal and policy space for protecting and providing level-playing field to domestic producers; and export competitiveness. The final decision on whether or not the moratorium should continue would be taken at the 12th WTO Minister

Namrata Pathak, Ph.D.    Research Associate, RIS Apurva Bhatnagar, Research Assistant, RIS   The past few decades have seen a significant change in the global health burden of the world. Where at the start of the century, communicable diseases and malnutrition were the major causes of death, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have decisively replaced these to become the dominant cause of death globally. The 2016 Global Burden of Disease data affirms that as compared to   775.5 million deaths attributed to communicable diseases,   maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions, 1,595.5 million deaths were attributed to NCDs. [1] Interestingly,   NCDs’ rapid growth affects not only developed countries, but also low- and middle-income countries.   NCDs are a cause for concern not only for their prevalence, but also because they may impose a high economic burden that could rise substantially over the coming decades. NCDs’ global economic burden has been estimated at USD47 trillion in 201