Revista de Economie Mondiala/ Journal of Global Economics

18-41

Authors: Agnes Ghibuțiu

In December 2017, the EU and Japan announced the conclusion of the final talks on their comprehensive Free Trade Agreement and Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) respectively, negotiated since 2013. The EPA comes at a time when the international rules-based order and open trading system are facing the biggest challenges since their establishment in the aftermath of WW2. After a brief overview of the components of the new EPA, this paper highlights its economic, commercial, and geostrategic significance, and also assesses its implications for the EU and Japan, as well as the USA, and globally. According to its findings, in addition to the substantial potential economic benefits for the EU and Japan, the new agreement will trigger considerable geopolitical effects. Not only will it place the EU and Japan at the forefront of global trade liberalization and rulesetting, but it is also likely to have a beneficial influence on US trade policy. Yet, the current world order and the global trading system are still in flux, and their future is fraught with uncertainty.

61-75

Authors: Sarmiza Pencea

To continue its advancement towards the statute of a developed economy, China has to reinvent itself. Its still underdeveloped tertiary sector seems to have the potential to substantially contribute to meeting this imperative, but is it trully able to become the new driver of growth? This article looks at the essential aspects of the services sector’s current condition, as well as the strategies and policies that are addressed to it, alongside the successes it has already achieved and the challenges it still has to face. It concludes that services will become the backbone of the Chinese economy in the long run, yet generating a slower growth rate than manufacturing did in the past. However, in the short and medium-term the tertiary sector will still have a difficult transition to undergo, in which productivity improvement through structural modernization, market opening and acceptance of increased and loyal competition will be the touchstones.