WTO Chair Holder attended the Biannual Conference of the Society of International Economic Law in Washington, DC and delivered a presentation on “Trade and Competition: Time to Embrace Complementarity and Interdependence” as part of the WTO Chairs panel.

The paper analyzes the structure of poverty and trade openness in Morocco, and how trade liberalization affects poverty. We present regional evidence in the last fifteen years. We illustrate significant regional differences in term of poverty, vulnerability, inequality and trade openness. We discuss the driving factors of these regional discrepancies. Our approach is based on estimation on a panel model, including the 14 regions. Our results show that extreme poverty is almost eradicated in Morocco, except for some areas.

The evolution of international economic relations in recent years has prompted the Russian Federation to reconsider its role in the neighborhood and on the global stage. In particular, the Ukrainian crisis and the Western economic sanctions against Russia clearly show conflicts of interest between major powers under the multipolar order. In this case, the Russian Federation is working to strengthen its foreign policy diversification, including economic and political cooperation with Asian countries.

The BRICS cooperation plays an increasing role for the foreign economic strategy of the Russian Federation. There is a certain potential in strengthening Russian trade ties with the BRICS countries, but at the same time the authors underline an imbalance in its geographical and commodity structure. The instruments of trade policy applied by Russia impose some limitations on the further trade cooperation.