Nepal’s lackluster economic performance during the post-conflict period (that is, after November 2006) has been driven by remittances from the export of labor services and the improved performance of the agricultural sector, which is still very much weather dependent. The authors make the...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is getting increasingly assertive as a player in regional and world arenas. The group, which includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Brunei, has focused on economic integration...

ASEAN member countries are moving towards achieving the ASEAN Economic Community with the timeline set at 2015. It is therefore important for policymakers in the region to sustain the momentumor perhaps even accelerate the pacetowards establishing the AEC. Policy measures are being implemented...

The private sector is the driver of growth in most ASEAN economies. It is therefore expected to play a significant role in the process of economic integration in ASEAN. In the Philippines, the private sector has dominated the economy, contributing about 95 percent of GDP, but it has not lived up...

The 21st century, as being said the world over, will belong to Asia. The regional economic cooperation in Asia is developing fast and well with the ASEAN as a center and with the positive participations of major Asian nations such as China, India and Japan. The cooperation has shown that the...

This paper summarizes the conceptual rationale for investment liberalization to fully exploit the potential of regional trading arrangements. It goes on to examine the treatment of investment in emerging FTAs/RTAs in the Asia-Pacific region and the specific investment provisions and their...

The 14th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders Meeting was held in Hanoi, Viet Nam on November 18-19 under the theme of Toward a Dynamic Community for Sustainable Development and Prosperity. The theme conveys two messages : One is to enhance trade and investment in a rapidly...

At this time, a move resumed to develop the basin of the Mekong River, the largest river in Southeast Asia and a lifetime in the region, following suspension of such a movement in the 1950s. Activities to develop the Mekong River Basin have resumed from the first half of the 1990s, as the area...

APECs vision of integrating the APEC has remained, for the most part, intangible. Cultural differences, socio-economic disparity and lack of a defined structure and leadership have been cited by many as major obstacles. Lately, there has been a proliferation of regional groups in Asia, creating...

Despite creating a record of number of jobs in 2007 and 2008 (237,000 jobs in 2007 and 202,400 jobs in the first three quarters of 2008) and averaging a growth rate of nearly 10 percent from 2004 to 2007, Singapore was the first East Asian country to fall into a recession from the current global...