On 24 August 2021, the webinar on “International economic fluctuations in the new context” took place successfully with the presence of over 200 participants including international speakers, researchers, lecturers, and students at VNU University of Economics and Business.
The special guest speaker was Prof. Craig Parsons from the Faculty of Economics, Yokohama National University. Prof. Craig Parsons’s presentation was about “Japanese FTAs and their effects in the past, present, and future”. Prof. Craig Parsons emphasized the impact of Japan’s free trade agreements. Although the influence of FTA on Japan has been inconsiderable, Japan has been participating in a wide range of FTAs due to their various advantages. As two sides of a coin, he affirmed that difficulties came with opportunities. Therefore, in order to elucidate these tackles and potentials in the present time, the Faculty of International Business and Economics, VNU University of Economics and Business implemented a deep interview with Prof. Craig Parsons through several questions after the webinar ends.
Please further clarify if the impact of FTAs on Japan’s GDP is lower than that on Vietnam’s. Explore and clarify the openness index, the independence of Japan on international partners.
The gain from the variety of goods benefits small countries as well. For example, Mongolia is an isolated small country that will benefit from trade because the country cannot produce white wine and that means the country will import more. Switzerland is also a small country and it is beneficial from the gain of variety compared to countries like Japan or America. The gain of variety also comes from the producers’ side as they can gain access to more optimal sources.
Suggestions for Vietnamese agriculture firms to overcome the measures and protectionist measures by Japan
For agriculture, for example, dragon fruit from Vietnam. To be honest, I have not seen any dragon fruit from Vietnam in Japanese supermarkets at all. I don't know what happened then, maybe the Japanese consumers do not like it. About the protectionism in Japan, sometimes, if Japan thinks it’s worth it, they actually send inspectors to see the problem through, even if they have to bear the burden of the cost. I think the US does the same. They will send the agriculture inspectors to China, to the Chinese chicken processing plants.
Japanese FTAs have little effect but why does Japan have so many FTAs? Vietnam has 4 FTAs with Vietnam, which FTA shows the most efficiency?
The most gain from FTAs, for Japan’s side, it was small just 1% of the GDP and depends on what method you use, it may take 0.6 or 0.99% but the small differences of those percentage numbers are actually quite large. For Japan, I really don’t know if the gain from TPP is bigger than RCEP. Japanese agriculture is dying. Their farmers are on average 70 years old. They have modernized and TPP pushes Japan for internal changes and becomes more efficient in agriculture.
Please further explain NOVY method as well as its advantages and disadvantages.
For the NOVY method, it compares internal trade to external trade. The gravity model measures the changes of trade but for Novy method, the idea is quite simple but the model behind it is very complex. If you have good input-output data, you can calculate some proxy for internal trade and then use regular data of external trade and you bring them both together and make the assumptions and then the cost of trade and time can be calculated.
Special thank you for your time and sharing! Best luck to you!