"TIPS and the International Trade Centre (ITC) will be hosting a seminar which will focus on the utilisation of ITC's tools for market analysis in the development of international trade strategies.
This seminar is of particular interest to businesses engaged in or planning to venture into international trade."

On behalf of the Department of Economics of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, TIPS will organise a workshop on Growth, Openness and Poverty in South Africa and Thailand. Attached find a paper that explores the interaction between investment and productivity in a intertemporal general equilibrium growth framework in Thailand. Attendance is by invitation only.

The UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) produced a White Paper on Trade and Investment in mid-2004, which aimed to address, among other issues, how the multilateral trading system could be adapted to make it more flexible and of benefit to all its members, especially the poorest.

As part of the consultation process for the White Paper, the DTI UK initiated a programme of seminars on the key themes during March 2004, which included a round table on trade and development in South Africa, with the overarching theme of how the economic gains from increased trade could be spread throughout the supply chain so that all benefit from greater globalisation.

One particular aim of the South African round table was to give stakeholders in the region an opportunity to feed into UK policy on trade and provide the DTI UK with a clear African perspective on the UK's current trade policy and the issues and concerns around such policy.

The Department for International Development (DFID) facilitated and TIPS co-ordinated the South Africa round table discussion.

Over recent years, there has been an unprecedented increase in the scope and level of protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs), including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and geographical indications. This trend has generated new opportunities, but also new tensions around key public policy concerns such as public health, food security, education, innovation, transfer of technology and biodiversity management. While much of the debate still focuses on the WTO TRIPS Agreement, higher standards of protection, with narrowed down exceptions (TRIPS plus) are increasingly being included in new bilateral and regional free trade agreements. In a knowledge-based economy, a strong understanding of IPRs and their development implications is indispensable to informed policy-making in all areas of human development. As a contribution to this debate, the dialogue aims to:

• Provide a platform for a strategic discussion between relevant stakeholders (negotiators, capital-based policy makers, academia, NGOs and private sector) on relevant trends and thematic issues in the area of intellectual property and their implications for sustainable development; and
• Develop elements of a regional agenda for development- oriented intellectual property policies and informal mechanisms to advance it in the coming years, through, among others, joint research and networking.

The dialogue was organised and conducted as an open, informal process, bringing together 20-25 stakeholders with a variety of interests and experiences. Formal presentations were kept to a minimum, allowing enough time for a frank and open debate. Think pieces on the four topics for discussion identified in the agenda were conducted by resource persons from the region. The presentations by resource persons were followed by observations and comments by the discussants.

This initiative was developed in the framework of the joint UNCTAD-ICTSD Project on IPRs and Sustainable Development, which aims to improve the understanding of the development implications of IPRs and facilitate an informed participation of developing countries in ongoing negotiations, through policy-oriented research, multi-stakeholder dialogues and outreach.

Further information about this Regional Dialogue is available at: http://www.iprsonline.org/unctadictsd/dialogue/2004-06-29/2004-06-29_desc.htm

Further information about Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and Sustainable Development is available at the internet portal.

This forum provides an opportunity for national and international researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders to dialogue on important policy-relevant trade and industrial policy and broader economic policy issues. The fourth conference deals with the critical issue of employment.

Unemployment is the most important social and economic issue in South Africa. There is an urgent need to critically examine ways and means of improving the prospects for growth and employment in South Africa. The aim of the forum is to initiate rigorous research on a range of important areas. The forum will focus on specific themes listed below, beginning with an overarching themes followed by more specific detailed issues.

See Annual Forum papers

From being the largest producer of gold in the world, Ekurhuleni has evolved into a global competitor in business and industry. The mining boom in the East Rand facilitated the growth of a substantial manufacturing support base in the area, especially in terms of metal products, machinery, and engineering. Today, Ekurhuleni accounts for more than 40% of the manufacturing that takes place in Gauteng, and in many industries, Ekurhuleni accounts for around one-third of national manufacturing output.
Notwithstanding these figures, there has been a general decline in the manufacturing sector over the past few years, and it has become imperative to develop a consensus on the state of manufacturing, the basis for manufacturing performance and - importantly - how to ensure sustainable manufacturing in the longer term.
Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) recently hosted a symposium to highlight the importance of sustainable manufacturing for the South African economy.

The Strategic Competitiveness Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, invites you to attend a high-level conference on competitiveness.
The focus of the conference is on the role of institutions in fostering competitiveness. The conference will host various international speakers sharing success stories relevant to advancing competitiveness in South African Economy.
Delegates will include senior government policy analysts and opinion from business, the academic community, science councils and labour.

The third of a series of international conferences on regulation and competition under of the auspices of the Centre on Regulation and Competition (CRC) - the only one to be held in Africa - will be co-ordinated by the School of Public Management & Planning at the University of Stellenbosch, in partnership with TIPS, the African Forum for Utility Regulation (AFUR) and the National Electricity Regulator (NER).

The School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) are running their fourth annual short course on computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling course in Johannesburg from 4/5-16 July 2004.
The IT revolution has allowed techniques that were once the preserve of a handful of leading theoreticians to become part of the practical economist's everyday toolkit. CGE modelling is one of a number of approaches to economy-wide analysis that have become accessible and practicable as data and computer based techniques have developed

The tertiary sector accounts for around 60% of South Africa's GDP and formal employment. In addition, the sector provides key inputs to the manufacturing and primary sectors and in some cases is a crucial determinant of the competitiveness of these sectors. Nonetheless, services remain under-researched in South Africa, thereby limiting the potential for government to meet its economic objectives and to use the GATS negotiations at the WTO to win trade preferences for Services exports.
In an attempt to develop a medium-term research agenda for the sector, TIPS convened a small workshop of interested researchers and academics to discuss research priorities, sectoral challenges, availability of information and information sharing.