Microfinance is an emerging important financial subsector in Asian transition countries. Its role is to improve financial access of the poor and small economic players and thus help them to build assets, thereby contribute to poverty alleviation. This paper provides an overview of rural finance...

The outstanding world market success of East and Southeast Asian countries (ESAEs) provides lessons for Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) striving to penetrate Western markets, even though starting conditions were strikingly different between these country groups. While ESAEs...

Over the last two decades, Southeast and East Asian developing countries have evolved into an economic growth pole of increasingly global importance. The pronounced trade orientation of the eight major countries - i.e. the ASEAN countries, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan - has...

The paper analyses sectoral patterns of intra-Asian trade for selected Asian countries as well as for sub-regions within Asia. Beyond a general trend towards manufactures, it reveals remarkable differences in specialisation profiles between lagging South Asian countries still concentrating on...