Accelerating Regional Integration: Issues at the Border

Douglas H. Brooks and Susan Stone
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Douglas H. Brooks: Asian Development Bank Institute

No 200, ADBI Working Papers from Asian Development Bank Institute

Abstract: The sharp decline in trade volume and value during the current economic crisis has contributed to lower transportation costs and reduced waiting times at border crossings, reducing the urgency of progress on trade facilitation. Meanwhile, greater trade is expected to play a key role in recovery, and in sustaining growth afterwards. The crisis offers an excellent opportunity to make progress on facilitating intra-Asian trade and boosting the region's contribution to global economic recovery.

This paper examines the status of, and challenges to, trade facilitation among the Asian Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members, and the roles of hard and soft infrastructure (including logistics) in improving that performance. Analysis with a computable general equilibrium framework indicates that even a relatively modest reduction in trade costs can yield significant gains. Gross domestic product in the region expands and countries move into a more diversified trading pattern. Of particular relevance for policy considerations is that the results vary considerably across bilateral trade routes and commodity categories.

Keywords: asian apec members infrastructure; regional integration; trade facilitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F15 F17 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2010-02-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Accelerating Regional Integration: Issues at the Border (2010)
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