Download or read book Regional Cooperation and Free Trade Agreements in Asia written by Jiaxiang Hu and published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of Asia and the dynamics of Asian economic development have impacted global trade relationships and regional cooperation tremendously. While the WTO integrating national economies into global trade regulations has further liberalized trade relationships between developed and developing nations and amongst the emerging economies in particular in Asia, proliferation of free trade agreements in Asia has raised growing concerns regarding the fragmentation of the world economic order. World-renowned experts have here answered a variety of trade related issues ranging from China’s free trade agreements in its neighbourhood, the Tripartite Relationship between China, Japan and Korea, the Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation as well human rights and environmental implications of free trade agreements. Contributors are: Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Jianfu Chen, Won-Mog Choi, Ming Du, Henry Gao, Liyu Han, Jiaxiang Hu, Robert Irish, Tomoko Ishikawa, Md. Rizwanul Islam, Kwangkug Kim, Qingjiang Kong, Yong-Shik Lee, Wei Liang, Kuei-Jung Ni, Delei Peng, Yasuhei Taniguchi, Kim Van der Borght, Matthias Vanhullebusch, and Richard N. Watanabe, Shengxing Yu

Download or read book Asia s Free Trade Agreements written by Masahiro Kawai and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East Asia is the region of the world that is changing fastest in terms of trade arrangements. Dozens of free-trade agreements are signed every year, turning a complex situation into the East Asian noodle bowl of FTAs. This book addresses the crucial question posed by these new agreements how do they affect business? While many studies have focused on government-to-government issues, this book gets to the heart of the matter, studying what it means for the firms actually doing the trade and investment. I recommend this book to any serious student of trade, particularly those interested in understanding the rapidly evolving landscape in this most dynamic part of the world. Richard Baldwin, Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland The pursuit of more than one hundred Free Trade Agreements in East Asia is quietly producing a fundamental change in the global economic architecture. This path-breaking new volume provides an indispensable guide to the practical effect of such agreements on commercial transactions in the region. It is a must-read for businessmen and policymakers who seek to both understand the impact of FTAs in the real world and expand their contributions to economic growth and development. C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Peterson Institute for International Economics, US [East Asia] needs to think about appropriate measures to overcome the Asian FTA noodle bowl in the future. In this vein, the study suggests several practical measures including encouraging rationalization and flexibility of rules of origin, upgrading origin administration, improving business participation in FTA consultations, and strengthening institutional support systems for SMEs. . . It is hoped that this study will contribute to strengthening regional trade policies in Asia and compatibilities with global trade rules. Haruhiko Kuroda, President, Asian Development Bank This is a valuable contribution in a crowded field. Kawai and Wignaraja have gone beyond familiar arguments about the relative merits of regionalism and multilateralism to ask businesses what it all means to them. Policymakers should take note. Patrick Low, Chief Economist, WTO For policymakers in the region, the debate is no longer between regionalism and multilateralism. The real question is how we should create the model for regionalism that will become the building blocks to a multilateral trading system and avoid raising costs of doing business from the noodle bowl effect. Therefore the comparative and micro-level research found in this book provides valuable insights on the impact of FTAs on businesses. These insights will be relevant input as policymakers forge ahead in implementing regional FTAs, thinking of ways to amend and improve on them and, most importantly, harmonize or consolidate between existing regional FTAs in East Asia. Mari Pangestu, Minister of Trade, Indonesia The spread of Asia s free trade agreements (FTAs) has sparked an important debate on the impact of such agreements on business activity. This pioneering study uses new evidence from surveys of East Asian exporters including Japan, the People s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea and three ASEAN economies of the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to shed light on the FTA debate. Critics are concerned that FTAs erode the multilateral trading process and foster an alarming noodle bowl of overlapping regulations and rules of origin requirements which may be costly to business. Asia s Free Trade Agreements makes key recommendations for improving business use of FTA preferences, reducing costs of FTAs and creating a region-wide FTA. This well-researched and documented book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students in international business, international economics, economic development, public administration and public policy. Academics, researchers and members of think-tanks around the world will also benefit from this book as will trad

Download or read book Regional Trade Agreements in Asia written by Van Hoa Tran and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tran Van Hoa and Charles Harvie present this timely and original study of the likely effects of new regional developments in Asia.

Download or read book Asian Free Trade Agreements and WTO Compatibility written by Shintaro Hamanaka and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is an appropriate time to rethink the relationship between trade regionalism and multilateralism in the Asian context as we witness the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia. In the 1980s and 1990s, many scholars and policymakers believed that Asian integration was market-based, rather than legal-based, and that Asian integration would never be codified through agreements. Yet today, there are a large number of FTAs signed and under negotiation in Asia. This book investigates the appropriate relationship between regionalism and multilateralism, with a special reference to recent FTAs in Asia. It is undeniable that past trade multilateralism–regionalism debates centered on the trade-in-goods aspect. However, the majority of recent FTAs in Asia cover issues beyond trade-in-goods and tariff liberalization, such as trade facilitation, services, and economic cooperation. While the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XXIV governs regional integration initiatives in trade in goods, there is no (or at most a thin) World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement that stipulates the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism in issue areas other than goods. Thus, this study carefully considers the meaning of “WTO-compatible FTAs” by distinguishing “WTO consistency” and “WTO friendliness”, going beyond GATT Article XXIV debates and proposes a general framework for examining the openness of regionalism in various issue areas by identifying tree-type questions to distinguish several types of exclusiveness. It then specifically asks the following questions: Can Asian FTAs that cover several issues be considered multilateralism friendly? How does the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism differ between trade-in-goods and non-goods issue areas? What are policies that might reduce the exclusiveness of regional initiatives? The study concludes by listing counterintuitive policy suggestions to make FTAs truly WTO compatible. The book also includes a comprehensive list of FTAs in Asia and several WTO Agreements relating to trade regionalism. Contents:Introduction: Conceptualizing the WTO Compatibility of FTAsAnalytical Framework for WTO Friendliness of FTAs: How to Check If They are Real “Friends” of WTO?Free Trade Agreements in Goods: Is Trade Bilateralism in Asia Consistent with WTO Rules and Norms?Regional Approaches to Trade Facilitation: Are Regional Trade Facilitation Measures Discriminatory Against Non-Members?Regional Services Agreements: What is the Value of GATS-Plus Regional Services Commitments?Economic Cooperation Under FTAs: Do FTAs Impose WTO-Plus Technical Assistance Obligations on Members?Conclusion: Counter-Intuitive Policy Implications for WTO-Compatible FTAs Readership: Researchers, professionals, undergraduate and graduate students interested in Free Trade Agreements, World Trade Organization, Regionalism, Trade in Services and Trade Facilitation. Keywords:Free Trade Agreement (FTA);World Trade Organization (WTO);Regionalism;Trade in Services;Trade FacilitationKey Features:Chapters first present the methodology relevant to analyze FTA's WTO compatibility in a particular area and then present case studies of Asian FTAs to examine their WTO compatibility, which is followed by the policy discussions on how to make FTAs more WTO-friendlyThe book is interdisciplinary covering economics, political science and international economic lawAuthored by ADB Economist specializing in FTA issues, the book provides readers with theoretically sound and empirically rich discussion on FTAs. The author knows both theory and practice of FTAs and WTO (served as negotiator at the Japanese Mission to the WTO; involved in the regional economic integration issues at the Office of Regional Economic Integration at ADB)Reviews: “Shintaro Hamanaka has written an interesting and important book on Asian Free Trade Agreements and WTO Compatibility. The first major contribution is to distinguish between the narrowly legal concept of WTO-consistency and the broader concept of WTO-friendliness. That distinction underpins the book's analysis, in which Hamanaka identifies examples of agreements that are WTO-consistent but not in the spirit of the WTO or likely to promote future multilateralism; as he points out, non-violation of rules is not the same as harmony. The book's second major contribution is in-depth analysis of 21st. Century trade agreements in Asia, covered in four substantive chapters on trade in goods, trade facilitation, services agreements, and economic cooperation. The author's detailed knowledge of more than a hundred agreements is used to support analysis in which the big picture is kept impressively in focus.” Prof. Richard Pomfret University of Adelaide

Download or read book Intellectual Property and Free Trade Agreements in the Asia Pacific Region written by Christoph Antons and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is highly topical. The shift from the multilateral WTO negotiations to bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements has been going on for some time, but it is bound to accelerate after the WTO Doha round of negotiations is now widely regarded as a failure. However, there is a particular regional angle to this topic as well. After concluding that further progress in the Doha round was unlikely, Pacific Rim nations recently have progressed with the negotiations of a greatly expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that includes industrialised economies and developed countries such as the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, recently emerged economies such as Singapore, but also several developing countries in Asia and Latin America such as Malaysia and Vietnam. US and EU led efforts to conclude FTAs with Asia-Pacific nations are also bound to accelerate again, after a temporary slowdown in the negotiations following the change of government in the United States and the expiry of the US President’s fast-track negotiation authority. The book will provide an assessment of these dynamics in the world’s fastest growing region. It will look at the IP chapters from a legal perspective, but also put the developments into a socio-economic and political context. Many agreements in fact are concluded because of this context rather than for purely economic reasons or to achieve progress in fields like IP law. The structure of the book follows an outline that groups countries into interest alliances according to their respective IP priorities. This ranges from the driving forces of the EU, US and Japan, via Asia-Pacific resource-rich but IP poor economies such as Australia and New Zealand, recently emerged economies with strong IP systems such as Singapore and Korea to leading developing countries such as China and India and ‘second tier industrializing economies’ such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Download or read book Bilateral Trade Agreements in the Asia Pacific written by Vinod Aggarwal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Asia-Pacific region has witnessed a rapid rise in bilateral preferential trade agreements at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This trend could have potentially dramatic effects on the trading patterns of countries in the transpacific region and beyond. Some argue that these accords will spur multilateral negotiations, while others believe that they will irreparably damage the trading system. Bilateral Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific examines the underlying political and economic factors driving these accords, based on a novel theoretical framework. Experts then provide overviews of political and economic trends in the region as well as detailed analysis of the trade strategies of Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Mexico. By systematically evaluating and assessing the driving forces underlying the turn to bilateral trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of this crucial phenomenon. Growing numbers of countries both in the region and elsewhere in the world are now considering further negotiation of bilateral trade accords. Understanding how these arrangements will fit or conflict with existing institutions in the Asia-Pacific and the WTO makes this book imperative reading for policy-makers and scholars.

Download or read book Free Trade Agreements in Southeast Asia written by Rahul Sen and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2004-06-22 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are often considered as one of the building blocks for regional economic integration. This book details the concluded as well as ongoing FTA initiatives of Singapore, highlighting the benefits to the Singapore economy.

Download or read book Cross Regional Trade Agreements written by Saori N. Katada and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unacknowledged key feature of East Asian FTA diplomacy is the region's active cross-regional preferential trading relations. In sharp contrast to the Americas and Europe, where cross-regional initiatives gained strength after the consolidation of regional trade integration, East Asian governments negotiate trade deals with partners outside of their region at an early stage in their FTA policies. The book asks three main questions: Are there regional factors in East Asia encouraging countries to explore cross-regionalism early on? What are the most important criteria behind the cross-regional partner selection? How do cross-regional FTSs (CRTAs) influence their intra-regional trade initiatives? Through detailed country case studies from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, we show the ways in which these governments seek to leverage their CRTAs in the pursuit of intra-regional trade integration objectives, a process that yields a much more permeated regionalism.

Download or read book ASEAN and Regional Free Trade Agreements written by Christopher Findlay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Efforts to use existing trade agreements to build a larger regional agreement face many challenges. This book considers this problem with reference to ASEAN’s current agreements with key partners and the interest to build the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The analysis of the options is framed by a focus on the use of supply chains in international business. Issues considered include those related to reductions in tariffs, trade facilitation, the treatment of investment and of services and the definition of rules of origin. The work is informed by case studies of supply chains in automobile and electronics, and in a professional service sector. The book provides a set of priority actions for better progress in taking a bottom-up approach to building RCEP.

Download or read book Free Trade Agreements In The Asia Pacific written by Christopher Findlay and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have proliferated in East Asia as regional economies rush to catch up with the rest of the world — but what difference do they make? This book answers that question by providing an up-to-date assessment of the quality and impact of FTAs in the region. Featuring a collection of papers originally written for the prestigious Research Institute for Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) in Tokyo, it presents contemporary analysis and insights into the evolution of recent FTAs. The book is suitable for use by trade policy negotiators, policy analysts, and people developing business strategies in organizations, as well as graduate students and researchers in the field.

Download or read book Rules of Origin and the Web of East Asian Free Trade Agreements written by Miriam Manchin and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors provide an overview of the preferential rules of origin in East Asia, highlighting the aspects that might possibly generate some trade-chilling effects. They review characteristics of existing preferential trade agreements with special emphasis on lessons from the European experience, and analyze some important features of the existing rules of origin in East and South-East Asian regional integration agreements. The empirical analysis of the effectiveness of preferentialism on intra-regional trade flows focuses on the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), with the aim of providing a rough estimate of the costs of requesting preferences. The results suggest that preferential tariffs favorably affect intra-regional imports only at very high margins (around 25 percentage points). This points to the likelihood of high administrative costs attached to the exploitation of preferences, particularly with regard to the compliance with AFTA's rules of origin.

Download or read book Mega Regional Trade Agreements written by Thilo Rensmann and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth analysis of "Mega-Regionals", the new generation of trans-regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) currently under negotiation, and their effect on the future of international economic law. The main focus centres on the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), but the findings are also applicable to similar agreements under negotiation, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).The specific features of Mega-Regional Trade Agreements raise a number of issues with respect to their potential effect on the current system of international trade and investment law. These include the consequences of Mega-Regionals for the most-favoured-nation (MFN) principle, their relation to the multilateral system of the World Trade Organization (WTO), their democratic legitimacy and their interaction with existing bilateral investment treaties (BITs).The book is intended for academics and practitioners working in the field of international economic law.

Download or read book Trade Regionalism in the Asia Pacific written by Sanchita Basu Das and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asia has witnessed a proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) since the turn of the millennium. The first regional agreement — the ASEAN FTA — was transformed into the ASEAN Economic Community at the end of 2015. In the meantime, ASEAN forged five ASEAN+1 FTAs and began to negotiate a sixteen-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement. In parallel, the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), supporting U.S. foreign policy of “Pivot to Asia”, was broadly agreed in October 2015. The RCEP and the TPP are accompanied by other mega-regional integration processes developing elsewhere in the world, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership for the European Union and the United States, and the Pacific Alliance among four Latin American member states. Meanwhile, APEC is also striving to meet its Bogor Goal targets and create a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. Each of these mega-regionals aims to achieve greater trade and investment liberalization and facilitation and more harmonized trade and investment rules so that all member economies can participate in the global value chain of production. Instead of undermining, these regional exercises can be building blocks for a more liberal global trading system supported by the World Trade Organization. This book ruminates on these regional agreements, their economic and strategic rationales and challenges during negotiations and afterwards. The book brings together eminent scholars and experts to deepen our understanding of the complex nature of the mega-regional trade agreements and their implications. It is useful both for the academic and research community and for policymakers who focus on trade and economic cooperation issues.

Download or read book New Free Trade Agreements in the Asia Pacific written by C. Dent and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-07-11 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the main causes, consequences and nature of the Asia-Pacific's new free trade agreement (FTA) trend, and its implications for the global economy. It explores the FTA policies of the region's trade powers and offers conceptual and theoretical perspectives on the relationship between economic bilateralism and regionalism.

Download or read book Free Trade Agreements in the Asia Pacific written by Christopher Charles Findlay and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2010 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have proliferated in East Asia as regional economies rush to catch up with the rest of the world OCo but what difference do they make? This book answers that question by providing an up-to-date assessment of the quality and impact of FTAs in the region. Featuring a collection of papers originally written for the prestigious Research Institute for Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) in Tokyo, it presents contemporary analysis and insights into the evolution of recent FTAs. The book is suitable for use by trade policy negotiators, policy analysts, and people developing business strategies in organizations, as well as graduate students and researchers in the field. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Rules of Origin and Agricultural Trade Liberalisation in Major Free Trade Agreements (249 KB). Contents: Rules of Origin and Agricultural Trade Liberalisation in Major Free Trade Agreements (I Cheong & J Cho); Services in Free Trade Agreements (R Ochiai et al.); Analysis of the Restrictions on Foreign Direct Investment in Free Trade Agreements (S Urata & J Sasuya); A Comparison of the Safeguard Mechanisms of Free Trade Agreements (A Kotera & T Kitamura); Assessing the Economic Impacts of Free Trade Agreements: A Computable Equilibrium Model Approach (K Abe); The Impacts of Free Trade Agreements on Trade Flows: An Application of the Gravity Model Approach (S Urata & M Okabe); On the Use of Free Trade Agreements by Japanese Firms (K Takahashi & S Urata); Impacts of Japanese FTAs/EPAs: Preliminary Post Evaluation (M Ando). Readership: Graduate students and researchers in international trade; trade policy negotiators; policy analysts; business strategy developers."

Download or read book Trade Policy in the Asia Pacific written by Vinod K. Aggarwal and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-11-03 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East Asian countries are now pursuing greater formal economic institutionalization, weaving a web of bilateral and minilateral preferential trade agreements. Scholarly analysis of “formal” East Asian regionalism focuses on international political and economic factors such as the end of the Cold War, the Asian financial crisis, or the rising Sino-Japanese rivalry. Yet this work pays inadequate attention to the strategies of individual government agencies, business groups, labor unions, and NGOs across the region. Moreover, most studies also fail to adequately characterize different types of trade arrangements, often lumping together bilateral accords with minilateral ones, and transregional agreements with those within the region. To fully understand this cross-national variance, this book argues that researchers must give greater attention to the domestic politics within East Asian countries and the U.S., involving the interplay of these subnational players. With contributions from leading country and regional trade specialists, this book examines East Asian and American trade strategies through the lens of a domestic bargaining game approach with a focus on the interplay of interests, ideas, and domestic institutions within the context of broader international shifts. With respect to domestic politics, the chapters show how subnational actors engage in lobbying, both of their own governments and through their links to others in the region. They also trace the evolution of interests and ideas over time, helping us to generate a better understanding of historical trends in the region. In addition to scholars of East Asian and comparative regionalism, this book will be of interest to policy-makers concerned with international trade and U.S.-Asia relations, and those interested in understanding the rich trade institutional landscape that we see emerging in the Asia-Pacific.

Download or read book The Asia Pacific Trade Agreement written by Joong-Wan Cho and published by UN. This book was released on 2016 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International trade and investment have enabled many countries in the Asia-Pacific region to boost economic growth and have lifted millions out of poverty. As the Asia-Pacific region continues to thrive economically, trade and investment barriers are being dissolved and eliminated. As countries begin to depend on each other more, trade policy is gradually becoming a useful measure to achieve inclusive and sustainable development. Trade and investment are linked to the environment and social issues; hence, their impacts are also multi-dimensional. It has now been recognized that sustainable production and consumption are essential for sustainable development. Countries realize that they are not able to approach global and regional problems on their own and require cooperation, both at the level of government and business. As a result, the region has been active in concluding regional cooperation frameworks which routinely are centered on trade and investment. In the meantime, business has forged regional integration through the formation of regional value chains and production networks while governments have paved the way for the expansion of such production networks through the formation of regional trade agreements and economic partnerships. Thus, the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), which is the oldest preferential trade agreement in the region with a large consumer base, can play an important role in filling this gap. Given a slow progress in the multilateral negotiations in the WTO, especially when the members have started questioning the utility of the negotiations after 15 years, and a lack of consensus on how to move forward, the regional trade agreements can play a vital role. Even if they pose a challenge to the multilateralism, selected liberalisation of trade and economy in present time can become a building block for future multilateral negotiations. One of the reasons for the surge in these preferential trade agreements is to make binding commitments on WTO-plus and WTO-beyond issues. While there are many agreements that exist in Asia and the Pacific, there is no such attempt to consolidate them in one umbrella framework. Understanding the benefits of the consolidation, one such initiative was started by ESCAP a few years back. The RECI initiate for market integration could well be facilitated by APTA; however, it cannot deliver unless it transforms itself in a new generation agreement. Regional integration and cooperation are also important to meet the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Instead of wasting resources in discussing a new institutional framework, it would be more effective to use the existing framework and for the Asia-Pacific economies, the APTA provides an existing institutional platform. The cases discussed in this book prepare a ground for the future, and it is expected that all the stakeholders, member States of ESCAP, private sector as well as researchers would benefit from this publication on APTA: South-South Regional Integration and Sustainable Development.