Revista de Economie Mondiala/ Journal of Global Economics

1-28

Authors: Agnes Ghibuțiu, Iulia Monica Oehler Șincai

This paper aims to highlight some of the recent developments in global trade in services. It sets out three main objectives. Firstly, to analyse the increasing interdependence between global trade flows in goods and services against the background of rapid expansion of global production networks (GPN) managed by transnational corporations (TNCs) - the dominant form of organization of global production and trade. It also points out that when international trade is measured in terms of value added instead by means of conventional statistics based on gross flows, services play a far more important role in global trade. Secondly, the paper aims to capture the dynamics of international trade flows in services at the regional level and emphasize the power shift from developed countries towards the developing and emerging ones. Thirdly, it intends to shed light on the important changes that have occurred in the structure of global trade in services under the impact of GPN, pointing to the rapid increase in modern services at the expense of traditional services, such as tourism and transport. The last part of the paper concludes.

57-65

Authors: Mariana Papatulica

The international crude oil prices started the year 2014 within parameters comparable to those of the precedent year: WTI (USA) recorded 92 $/barrel, on the American spot market, considered a minimum value for the last 5 weeks, while Brent (Great Britain) had a more stable evolution, on the spot Rotterdam market, staying around a value of 107,50 $/barrel. Despite analysts’ forecasts, which during the last 3 years staked on a lower oil price, as a consequence of the spectacular increase in non-OPEC oil production, namely of shale oil, the international oil price, namely that of Brent, closed each of the last 3 years around the same level, of 108 $/barrel. As for 2014, the great majority of oil analysts estimates again a decline of oil prices, as a result of a significant rise of oil offer globally, which will greatly surpass the demand rise.

66-76

Authors: Andreea Drăgoi

The emergence of global financial and economic crisis in 2007 and its effects on the real economies of the member states, since 2009, have led to a series of reforms and new developments in all EU common policies, which aimed to provide tools and solutions to boost economic growth and financial stability in EU. One of the most reformed common policy was undoubtedly state aid policy that became one of the main tools to support the banking and financial sector in all member states. Our analysis aims to highlight the impact of the international financial and economic crisis on the different types of aid granted by Member States to respond to exceptional conditions and systemic risks brought by the crisis in the banking sector, highlighting also the economic implications on the EU budget.

1-22

Authors: Agnes Ghibuțiu

Romania's trade in services has been severely hit by the global financial and economic crisis, and the negative consequences were still felt in 2012. This article aims to analyse the recent trends in Romania's services trade and assess its prospects. Relying on balance of payments statistics provided by the National Bank of Romania, it gives an overall picture on the dynamics, volume, composition and performance of the country’s trade in services over the crisis and post-crisis years. The analysis highlights a number of peculiarities of Romania's services trade, that seem to detache the country from the developments prevailing at the global and European level. The article concludes that: (1) along with a dramatic crisis-induced decline in the volume of services trade, Romania witnessed a sharp reversal of those favourable trends that have spurred the remarkable growth of its services flows in the pre-crisis period, contributing to rapid structural adjustment and improved performance; (2) the recovery of services trade is significantly delayed compared both to the country’s trade in goods and the trends shaping services flows globally and in the EU; (3) hence, Romania's traditional gap in the area of services trade has widened not only in relation to the old and new EU member states, but also to numerous developing countries.

1-16

Authors: Ecaterina Stănculescu

This article is an analysis of the four world superpowers (China, EU-27, USA and Japan) trade with the high-technology products (HT), in the period of the last disposable five years (2007-2011), period that encompasses also the global economic crisis. Fortunately, the crisis had no major impact on this commerce, as it is very easy to see from the text below. The article is structured in three parts: 1- methodological considerations for the scientific approach understanding, 2- the trade evolution of the four participants to the international trade with HT products, in 2007-2011 period that constitutes the main part of the analysis and 3- some dominant conclusions of the undertaken analysis. The selected subject is one of great interest having in view the technological course which takes place nowadays in the global economy and the efforts of the leading international countries (or states’ unions) for the domination of the HT international market.

1-19

Authors: Agnes Ghibuțiu, Iulia Monica Oehler Șincai

In March 2013, the EU and Japan launched negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA). The EU also announced starting of similar negotiations with the United States. Japan decided to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership under negotiation among 11 developed and developing nations in Asia-Pacific. FTAs are not new for the multilateral trading system. Striking is, however, the outstanding pace of the new trade deals among traditional trading powers. Our paper addresses the significance of the EU-Japan FTA. It first discusses the new FTA from a broader perspective, focusing on the difficulties and ongoing structural changes in the world economy. Second, it explores its importance through the lens of EU-Japan bilateral trade relations. It concludes that the recent push for FTAs by the big trading powers is a rapid means of mutual market opening in the context of reforming the very fundamentals of their economic and trade policies, as a response to the financial crisis and the shift in economic power from developed to developing countries.

1-17

Authors: Alina Ligia Dumitrescu

Coordination among supervisors in financial and banking system is vital, but the financial crisis has shown that is not enough, and especially in the context of a single currency would require more common actions in EU. Therefore, the European Commission proposed “the creation of a banking union”, in order to place the banking sector on a more solid base and to restore confidence in the single currency, as part of a longer-term vision for the promotion of the economic and fiscal integration. Therefore, the new direction of the reform of the financial sector is "the creation of a banking union", that will help: to strengthen banks supervision, to ensure better deposits security, to recapitalize banks and last but not least to achieve the centralized management of the banking crises.

1-16

Authors: Maria Cartas

Trends and prospects of international major commodity prices. In 2012, the international commodity markets have seen declining prices, especially during the first half of the year, with some improvement mainly in the last quarter. On the whole, most of major commodity prices declined, following generally weaker demand and the uncertain global economic situation. The short term outlook shows broad declines of prices for all major commodity groups, including oil and excepting metal prices, which are expected to be sustained by the global economic recovery and increasing demand, mainly in China. This country represents a major player, with a great contribution to the movement of prices on most of international commodity markets, as she has a great role in the world consumption and trade of commodities, as well as in the world production of some of these goods, on the one hand, and enjoys huge financial resources, on the other.

1-18

Authors: Iulia Monica Oehler-Șincai

In the present paper, our main objective is to bring to the forefront two notable processes, as a result of the world financial and economic crisis. On the one side, we underline the increasing role of the emerging countries (especially that of China, Brazil, Russia and India) in the world economy and, on the other side, we underscore the remodelling of the patterns of economic growth and development in the case of the BRICS countries. The Russian Federation, Brazil and South Africa rapidly eased out of the recession in 2009, while China and India continued to record robust growth rates. Nevertheless, in 2012, one can remark the precipitate slowdown of the GDP growth in all the five analysed economies. This demonstrates that the emerging economies were not able to “decouple” from the world economy and, on the contrary, they were deeply affected by the adverse economic situation in the USA and the EU (especially the Euro Zone). At the same time, China’s economic slowdown negatively influences Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, as China represents the largest trading partner for them, after the EU. At the same time, one should not ignore the actual weaknesses of these economies. For instance, inflation represents a “common vulnerability” of the BRICS. In this situation, the selection of the most viable instrument of monetary policy represents a veritable challenge for the authorities in these countries, as the economic growth should be stimulated but, at the same time, inflation has to be tempered. Besides, unemployment rate in South Africa is already at high levels. The fiscal deficit, as a percentage of GDP is excessive in India and South Africa and the public debt to GDP ratio is extremely high in India and Brazil. During the world financial and economic crisis, the authorities and companies, both public and private, concentrated their attention more and more on the internal markets, with a high absorption capacity. Without giving up exports and FDI as engines of economic growth, the administrative bodies at macro and microeconomic levels understood that the internal demand represents a complementary source of growth. In contrast with the most developed countries, which intensely resorted to austerity measures, the BRICS were able to adopt stimulus measures. Such Keynesian moves were possible, as the emerging countries entered the global crisis with strong macroeconomic and financial positions. As a matter of fact, the world financial and economic crisis erupted in a moment considered by the international experts as the “most prosperous” for these countries. The general measures adopted in order to stimulate the economy in the field of fiscal policy and monetary policy were combined with specific, sectoral ones. Such measures managed even to attenuate the negative effects of the global crisis at social level. Infrastructure development though public investment projects is used by the BRICS governments as one of the principal means to stimulate economic growth and jobs creation. Our paper concludes that, for the BRICS countries, the classical engines for economic growth like exports and inward FDI are complemented by additional growth engines: internal demand (spurred by the high level of remittances from abroad), the outward FDI, innovation and infrastructure development.

1-33

Authors: Cristina Bumbac

Rare Earth Elements or Rare Earth Metals (REM) are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium and fifteen lanthanides. The term "rare earth" arises from the rare earth minerals from which they were first isolated. They are uncommon oxide-type minerals (earths) found in Gandolinite extracted from one mine in Sweden. The first discovery was made in 1794, but it was only in 1940 that the scientist Frank Spedding developed an ion exchange procedure for separating and purifying the REM. For the next decades, they were hardly used in some "minor" industrial fields. Only after 2000 their importance grew, once the multitude of possibilities to use them was discovered due to technological progress. Now REM are incorporated into almost all modern technological devices: superconductors, magnets, electronic polishers, refining catalysts hybrid car components and military techniques. They are used in small quantities, but due to their extraordinary properties the prices are very high. The main problem is that China dominates this market, with 97% of total global supply. The highest concentration of rare earth metals are in Inner Mongolia in China, Mountain Pass in California U.S.A. and in Mount Weld in Australia. The developed countries are far behind China regarding production and are indeed depending on Chinese exports. Hence, there is a difficult situation on this particular market, with an uncertain future.