Economic integration in northeast Asia: Preconditions and possible trajectories

When in November 2001, the leaders of the Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian states met for the “ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) plus three (China, Japan and Korea),” President Kim Dae‐Jung of South Korea proposed the exploration for an East Asian Free Trade Area (EAFTA) and thereby opened a new chapter of East Asian integration. The special Northeast Asian perspective on regional co‐operation became clear by the simultaneous decision to hold annual meetings of finance and trade ministers of China, Japan and Korea. At the same time, bilateral agreements, like a free trade area between Japan and Singapore, the tentative large free trade area between ASEAN and China and the work‐in‐progress on a Korean‐Japanese Free Trade Area, show the devotion and sometimes even obsession of current policy‐making with reaching regional trade agreements. Regional integration, it seems, is finally on the Northeast Asian agenda. In this paper, the preconditions and perspectives of economic integration in Northeast Asia will be explored. Since economic integration is in various ways linked to political factors, the second section discusses the geo‐political situation of Northeast Asia today. The third section deals with the economic perspectives of different forms of trade integration, followed by an analysis of various attempts for greater macro‐economic and financial co‐operation and a short conclusion.     

中日韩自由贸易协定中的农产品贸易问题分析

缔结中日韩自由贸易协定是区域经济一体化的大势所趋,但由于农产品贸易的复杂性和敏感性,以及日韩两国实施的高农产品贸易壁垒,农产品贸易将是未来三国谈判必须面对的难题。三国应促进农业合作,增加区域内农产品贸易,建立解决贸易摩擦的协调机制,实现三国农业共存共生,发挥各自应有的作用,促进区域农产品贸易的稳定发展。     

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: new paradigm or old wine in a new bottle?

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is currently negotiating with its six trading partners to form a new trade agreement called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The RCEP intends to harmonise rules and regulations across multiple overlapping free trade agreements in the region, and thereby attract new members. However, it faces several challenges. The mention of a flexibility principle and the ‘ASEAN Way’ of decision‐making has led many to believe that the RCEP will be yet another low‐quality regional trade agreement. However, the RCEP presents all ASEAN members with the opportunity to take a role in setting the agenda for a region‐wide agreement. Hence, despite its challenges, ASEAN must make the effort to reach an attractive RCEP vis‐à‐vis other competing regional agreements. Accordingly, this paper describes what the RCEP is intended to be, how it emerged, and the issues that might affect the agreement's final quality, in order to evaluate if it will establish a new paradigm or a repackaged version of ASEAN's existing trade agreements.     

Openness,Regional Trade Agreements and Growth: Evidence from Asia*

This paper assesses the relationship between regional trade agreements, trade integration and economic growth in 21 South and South‐East Asian countries over the period from 1980 to 2004. We aim to answer the following questions. First, how does the trade policy of a given country (and countries within the same region) affect a nation's domestic growth? Second, should developing economies in South and South‐East Asia engage in regional trade agreements (RTA) or move towards broad liberalization? Our results show that openness of either a single country or of its neighbors does not affect a nation's growth and that the impacts of RTA are unclear (if not detrimental to growth in some cases, once endogeneity is accounted for). Panel Granger‐causality tests running from openness to growth yield mixed results and some conclusions depend on the particular subsample under scrutiny.     

A review of trade trends: South Africa and the Indian Ocean Rim

Since 1990, intense diplomatic efforts have taken place to secure and negotiate trade treaties with South Africa's traditional trading partners (the European Union, in particular) and those countries in close geographic proximity. This article examines South Africa's trade links with some of its ‘non‐traditional’ trading partners, in particular the countries of the Indian Ocean Rim (IOR), in an attempt to ascertain the nature of the trade and its importance vis‐a‐vis the rest of the world. An examination of trade data for the years 1992‐5 indicates that trade with the IOR consists mainly of the mutual exchange of natural resource products and that this trade is growing much faster than South Africa ‘s trade in general. Given this trade dynamism, South Africa should pay increasing attention to international relations with these countries. South African trade with the Rim was also found to differ from trade with the rest of the world in that it comprises the mutual exchange of natural resource‐based products. This research shows that our imports and exports are positively related to the gross domestic product of our trading partners, and negatively related to their population size and distance from South Africa. Also, more open economies have absorbed more exports from South Africa. There is some ambiguity as to the role that distance plays in determining the level of imports into this country. The intensity indices computed in this article have to be viewed in the light of this research.     

ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE AND INTERNATIONAL INTERACTIONS : THE IMPACT OF MARKET POWER ON DYADIC CONFLICT AND COOPERATION

This article presents a theoretical approach to analysing how a country with market power could affect international relations. The liberal view and trade‐conflict model claim that if countries seek to protect their trade gains, trade will reduce conflict between pairs of countries, designated “actors” and “targets”. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of market power on the gains from trade. Once the distribution of trade gains is changed between countries, the conflict and cooperation relationships between countries will also alter. We apply the trade‐conflict model to derive two propositions as follows: (1) the more monopoly power over exports a monopolistic target has, the greater the amount of actor‐to‐target conflict; (2) the more monopsony power over imports a monopolistic target has, the greater the amount of actor‐to‐target conflict. To summarise, these hypotheses will predict that a country with market power reaps the gains from trade and will exhibit less conflict and more cooperation, whilst the country that is exploited will exhibit more conflict and less cooperation.     

跨国次区域经济合作区与自由贸易区的分析——以GMS和CAFTA为例

作为区域经济一体化的一种新形式,跨国次区域经济合作区与传统的区域经济一体化组织有诸多不同。文章通过对跨国次区域经济合作区与典型传统的区域经济一体化组织—自由贸易区的分析比较,认为跨国次区域经济合作会在很大程度上促进相应的区域经济一体化合作的新发展。     

Customs unions and comparative advantage

This paper constructs a simple, general equilibrium trade modelto investigate how the formation of unconstrained, GATT-constrained,and Kemp-Wan customs unions affects inter-bloc tariffs and welfare.A central point of the paper is that the liberalization of intra-uniontrade creates incentives for all parties to reduce their remainingtariffs. Despite this, regional integration may not benefitnon-member countries and, depending on trade patterns and comparativeadvantage, it may raise welfare of members more than a regimeof globally free trade.     

论上海合作组织经济与贸易合作——兼论中国对推动上合组织经贸一体化的设想

上海合作组织在经过5年的发展后,包括经济在内的各个领域的相互合作取得了巨大的成绩,前期通过的《关于上海合作组织成员国多边经贸合作纲要落实措施计划》,进一步将经贸合作推向了具体实施阶段。本文就如何进一步深化上海合作组织的经贸合作,如何尽快实现区域内贸易和投资自由化等各成员国普遍关注的问题进行分析后认为,上海合作组织推进经贸一体化有利于区域经济稳定,它能有效应对不断加快的经济全球化和区域集团化趋势,消除贸易转移效应的影响,并使区域内成员尽早享受制度性合作的好处。     

Export processing zones as an element of export‐oriented and regional industrial development

Establishing export processing zones (EPZs) is a popular method of creating isolated islands of free trade which provide the export manufacturer with freedom from the cost‐increasing measures implemented to protect the domestic market. In South Africa the interest in using this concept has remained alive, especially because the EPZ has the additional advantage of being used as an instrument of regional development. After account has been taken in the paper of the economic rationale of the EPZ and of the apparent conditions for the successful operation of an EPZ, as deduced from the experience of countries that have made use of this development instrument, it is concluded that the economic feasibility of establishing conventional EPZs in South Africa is doubtful. A flexible approach, making use of the EPZ approach and of the system of duty drawbacks and rebates, could form the nucleus of a cost‐efficient way of providing export manufacturers with the advantages of a free trade situation.     

东亚经济一体化与合作：朝向共同体

长期以来,东亚地区的经济一体化主要靠市场力量推动,区域经济合作则落后于经济一体化进程。亚洲金融危机证明,仅靠市场推动的经济一体化是脆弱的,只有加强区域经济合作,东亚地区才能增强抵御外部风险的能力,保持经济的持续繁荣。亚洲金融危机后,东亚地区迅速建立起“10 3”的合作机制,在加强金融领域合作的同时,也不断拓展在经贸投资等领域的合作,并逐步确立了以建立东亚自由贸易区和东亚共同体的长远奋斗目标。特别是在中国提出与东盟建立自由贸易区后,东亚地区的合作步伐明显加快。尽管目前离建立东亚共同体的长远目标还很遥远,但东亚地区的合作进程已不可逆转,各种形式的合作努力将最终推动长远目标的实现。     

East and South Asia: Managing Difficult Bilateral Relations and Regional Integration Globally

This paper analyzes the economic integration of the East and South Asian economies in the global economy. East Asian economies are shown to be achieving much more of their potential trade than South Asian economies, both in terms of intra‐regional trade and in trade with the rest of the world. Examination of the China–Japan, India–Pakistan and Taiwan–mainland China bilateral relationships shows that integration of these economies into the global economy has allowed economic relations to dominate and constrain difficult bilateral political relations in East Asia while in South Asia adverse political relations have hampered development of bilateral economic relationships.     

中国当前FTA贸易效应分析与比较

根据2002-2010年中国进出口数据,利用混合效应面板数据模型,考察中国当前FTA的贸易创造效应和贸易转移效应,得出如下结论:中国参与FTA产生的贸易创造效应明显,而贸易转移效应较少;中国参与FTA明显推动了中国出口,而对进口影响因伙伴国不同而有所差异;FTA成立时间越长,体现出的贸易创造和贸易转移效应越明显;FTA的贸易效应与伙伴国经济发展水平密切相关;FTA伙伴国地理距离越近,贸易效应越明显。中国应选择经济互补性强、资源丰富、市场潜力大的国家缔结FTA,逐步扩大区域经济合作的地域范围,建立更广泛的区域经济合作伙伴关系。     

市场驱动的中日韩贸易一体化趋势研究

近年来中日韩三国经贸合作日益频繁,相互出口结构进一步与区域内的需求结构相契合,产业分工水平进一步深化,表现出明显的区域贸易一体化趋势。这一过程客观上要求突破原有的国家边界束缚,在区域内实施更加开放的经济贸易政策,促进区域竞争力提高和经济持续增长。     

论长吉图开发开放先导区与拟建中日韩自贸区的交织与互补

当前,一国区域经济发展与国际区域经济一体化交织并存.在东北亚区域经济合作中,正在建设的长吉图开发开放先导区和拟建的中日韩自贸区就是一例.尽管它们涵盖的地理范围不尽相同,合作的方式各异,但同为东北亚区域的局部经济合作,有着促进地区整体繁荣的共同目标.在运行中,彼此并行不悖,相互补益.长吉图开发开放先导区的边境自由贸易区是中日韩自贸区合作的先行试点,中日韩自贸区的建立将进一步推进长吉图开发开放先导区的发展.有理由相信,"两区"之间相互促进,协调发展的前景值得期待.为此,建议中国加快长吉图建设,为组建中日韩自由贸易区创造条件.与此同时,积极推进中日韩自贸区谈判,为长吉图开发开放营造更大发展空间.     

Internet-enabled supply chain integration: Prospects and challenges for the South African automotive industry

The impetus for supply chain integration (SCI) in the global automotive industry is being driven by the Internet. The article critically explores the potential of the Internet to optimise and streamline the complex supply chains found in the South African automotive industry. The Internet's potential to create seamless, collaborative supply networks could provide the local automotive industry with a distinctive competitive advantage in its pursuit of an 'outward orientation' and 'global connectedness' after a lengthy period of trade isolation and government protection. The findings, however, reveal that domestic automotive firms are generally not using the Internet for substantive interbusiness trade and advanced SCI. By not making the transition to Internet-enabled SCI, South African automotive firms may be placing themselves at risk of becoming less competitive in the globally interconnected market, which will impact on both their current market positions and long-term viability.     

论中日韩自由贸易区建立的制约因素

建立中日韩自由贸易区，既符合经济全球化与区域经济一体化迅猛发展的时代潮流，也是打破东北亚区域经济合作难以取得实质性进展的可行途径。但它的建立需要经历一个复杂而又充满挑战的过程，这主要是由于中日韩三国不仅在政治、经济方面存在着差异与差距，并且在开放各自敏感产业部门上也面临着巨大困难。美国的态度也将产生重要的影响。     

贸易自由化、产业规模与地区工资差距

本文在新经济地理学框架下构建了非对称的三地区空间模型研究贸易自由化、产业规模与地区工资差距的关系。研究结果表明:贸易自由化可能扩大或缩小地区间收入差距,这主要取决于地区相对产业份额以及本地与国外市场接近程度。当本地接近于国外市场并且产业份额相对较小时,贸易自由化与区域间收入差距呈倒"U"型关系;否则,贸易自由化扩大区域间的收入差距。使用1992～2008年中国27个省份面板数据证实了该假说,这也解释了Egger et al.(2005)与Redding和Sturm(2008)研究结论迥异的原因。此外,贸易自由化有利于各区域工资水平的提高,对产业份额较小地区尤为明显。     

Regional integration in Africa versus higher levels of intra-Africa trade

Regional integration arrangements have mushroomed worldwide, both on intra-regional and extra-regional levels. On an intra-regional level, Africa faces a complicated grid of multiple and overlapping membership of several regional integration organisations, aiming to increase intra-regional trade and cooperation. In this study, a comparative analysis will be executed, based on an intra-regional breakdown of trade, using the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa classification of countries according to geographical region. The level of intra-regional trade will be determined, whereafter the level of inter-regional trade will be established and, lastly, trade with the rest of the world. It seems that despite the high level of regional integration within Africa, it does not necessarily stimulate intra-Africa trade to expected levels as proposed by literature. A regional integration strategy that would cause deeper integration is crucial if the continent is to play a rightful role in the global arena.     

Is SAARC a viable economic block? evidence from gravity model

Intra-South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) trade appears to be very small compared to other existing regional blocks. This might be because of normal outcome or because of unexplored trade opportunity. If the latter is the case, then increased trade within this region might be welfare improving. This study attempts to make a formal analysis of these issues, and estimates a gravity model of international trade to examine whether intra-SAARC is lower or higher than what is predicted by an economic model. This gives an idea about the structure of comparative advantage in the SAARC countries that helps to explain why intra-SAARC trade is low and how trade among them can be increased. It also helps us to understand the possibility of trade creation and trade diversion effect resulting from South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangements among SAARC countries. Whereas the gravity model has been extensively used to measure bilateral trade among countries, they have, to the best of my knowledge, never been used to measure intra-SAARC trade. Our gravity model results suggest that SAARC member countries are yet to achieve trade-creating benefits. Appropriate policies need to be formulated for more regional integration. Liberalization of trade in SAARC countries offers significant gains for all the economies in the region. Efforts should be made to liberalize border trade and strengthen bilateral trade relations through the removal of tariff and nontariff barriers in the general framework of South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangements.