Asia Regional Integration Center

To galvanize support from the region's successful economies to help the small and weak economies is one key message of the Mobilizing Aid for Trade: Focus Asia and the Pacific conference held in Manila in September 2007. As agreed during this event co-hosted by ADB, WTO and the Philippine Government, and as reported to the Global Aid for Trade Review in Geneva, in November 2007, the future steps in Regional Aid for Trade includes a Regional Technical Group on Aid for Trade, a succinct Proposal for Aid for Trade in Asia and the Pacific, and a study on trade performance and Aid for Trade in Asia-Pacific. Read more.

The most immediate and visible fallout from the global credit market turmoil has been an increase in volatility in emerging East Asian bond markets, says the latest issue of Asia Bond Monitor, launched in Mumbai this week. Read the news release and full report.

OREI Head Jong-Wha Lee analyzes the patterns and determinants of financial integration in East Asia by using the data set of cross-border holdings of financial assets such as equity portfolio, long-term and short-term debt securities, and bank claims. He finds that financial integration among East Asian economies, particularly in equity and debt securities, is relatively lower than in Europe, and largely due to heavy intra-regional trade in goods. Read more.

ADBI Dean Masahiro Kawai and Ganeshan Wignaraja of OREI examine how consolidation of multiple and overlapping free trade agreements (FTAs) can help mitigate the harmful noodle bowl effects of different or competing tariffs, standards, and rules. A computable general equilibrium (CGE) model finds that consolidation at the ASEAN+6 level would yield the largest gains to East Asia among plausible regional trade arrangements. Read more.

Regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) continue to proliferate in the Asia and the Pacific region. Compared with more than 192 FTAs at the end of 2006, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) identified 204 bilateral and sub-regional FTAs that were concluded or under consideration within the region or with the rest of the world at end-2007. Over 65 FTAs are being implemented, 30 have been signed, 60 are under negotiation, and 49 have been proposed. East Asian economies -- involved with about 114 FTAs -- continue to be the major drivers of FTA formation in the region. View the tables. 

Professor Robert Barro of Harvard University examines the relationship between income inequality and GDP per capita (the Kuznets curve), the impact of international trade on income inequality, and the effect of income inequality on economic growth. There is some indication that inequality is bad for growth in poor countries and good for growth in richer countries. Read more.

Paul Lejot and Douglas Arner of University of Hong Kong and Lotte Schou-Zibell of ADB examine the use of securitization in East Asia, questioning both its growth after the Asian financial crisis and the reasons for it remaining constrained. Proposals on how to develop securitization to meet funding and investment needs instead of propagating excessive risk-taking is also discussed. Read more.

Economic growth in emerging East Asia will ease to 8.0% in 2008 from 8.5% in 2007, says the December issue of the Asia Economic Monitor. Moderating growth in key industrialized nations and some softening in the People's Republic of China rapid expansion-- to 10.5% from this year's 11.4%-- are behind the outlook. Volatility in global financial markets and elevated oil prices are expected to continue. Slower regional growth, however, is being accompanied by rising inflationary pressures, despite continued appreciation of many of the region's currencies.  Read more.