Prospects for Closer Economic Relations between Europe and East Asia

East Asia has rapidly become the third centre of gravity for global economic activity. North America is relatively well integrated with East Asia, but Europe is not. This paper explores the extent to which economic growth and trade poli - cy developments over the next decade will strengthen European-East Asian eco - nomic integration, and what scope there is to facilitate that set of bilateral rela - tionships. Use is made of a global CGE model (GTAP) to project the world economy to 2005 under various scenarios including Uruguay Round imple - mentation, faster economic growth in China, reneging on the promised phaseout of textile quotas, and APEC trade liberalization. The bilateral trade conse - quences in those scenarios highlight the fact that as East Asia’s relative impor - tance in the world economy keeps growing, so too does its importance to Europe. More surprisingly, the importance of Europe to East Asia also is pro - jected to grow with Uruguay Round implementation, and even APEC trade reform does not reduce Europe’s projected trade with East Asia.