Deadline: September 8, 2017
The Japan Foreign Trade Council is sponsoring JFTC Essay Competition 2017 to encourage students, young researchers and business people to express their opinions on matters of national and international importance. The essay topic for 2017 is The Ideal Future Free Trade System – Tasks and Solutions. Free trade aims to achieve economic development by promoting free transactions of goods and services in a global economy which is becoming increasingly interdependent. On the other hand, protectionist movements also have been emerging, criticizing free trade for giving rise to increases in economic disparity and unemployment. As a result, growing arguments are being made on both sides for the advantages and disadvantages of a free trade system.
- What advantages are people around the world gaining through free trade, and, to the contrary, what are the disadvantages?
- What kinds of measures are conceivable in order to further increase the advantages while reducing the disadvantages?
- In addition, what should “those concerned” do in order to achieve these measures?
In addition to your responses to these questions, please present your argument for what an ideal free trade system should look like in the future. In particular, essays which include analyses and suggestions about the part played by shosha companies are welcome.
Prizes
- One Grand Prize of ¥1,000,000
- Three Prizes for Excellence of ¥200,000 each
Eligibility
- Anyone can apply for the essay competition, regardless of nationality or age.
Application
- Essays must be submitted in the specified format sheet. Unless both essay title and summary are presented, such application shall be deemed incomplete and will NOT be evaluated. Besides, hand-written documents, documents delivered by postal service, documents with word number less than half of 4,000 words and beyond the limitation, and PDF-formatted documents, are NOT evaluated. When a part of the documents were copied or used by other work with no citation, such essays shall be disqualified;
- No previously published materials will be accepted. All rights to the award-winning essays shall be the exclusive property of JFTC;
- All submissions must be original and should be submitted with an entry form completely filled out;
- When you indicate sources cited, please put them concisely. Submitted work will not be returned;
- Essays developed by teams will be accepted under the name of the representative of the team. Please be noted that when an essay developed by a team were awarded, only the representative of the team would be invited. When the result of the evaluation is announced, the name of the team is publicized.
Award winners will be publicly announced on December 8, 2017. The award winners from abroad will be provided with a round trip air ticket to Tokyo, Japan to attend the award ceremony to be held on January 5, 2018.
For more information, see FAQ or visit JFTC Essay Competition.
