As East Asia becomes increasingly integrated through market-driven trade and FDI activities, free trade agreements (FTAs) are proliferating. Consolidation of multiple and overlapping FTAs into a single East Asian FTA can help mitigate the harmful noodle bowl effects of different or competing...

A coordinated action by East Asian countries to stabilize their currencies against a common basket of major currencies (broadly representative of their average structure of trade and foreign direct investment) would help stabilize both intraregional exchange rates and effective exchange rates,...

More effort should be made to develop a framework for international monetary coordination, not only to maintain stable exchange rates among the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, and the euro, but to minimize the risk of currency and financial crises in emerging economies in East Asia and elsewhere