ESCAP’s support for the project was applied through the establishment of a framework for evaluating project - level details of Aid for Trade projects based on which external consultants analyzed several individual projects in Bangladesh, Fiji, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam.

International trade has been the main engine of economic growth for the majority of economies in the Asia-Pacific region, enabling them to significantly reduce poverty during the past two decades. In the long term, trade liberalization is likely to foster improvements in technology, foreign direct investment (FDI), business networks, competition as well as efficient and cost-effective production, all of which go a long way towards promoting economic growth. In turn, economic growth is regarded as a key determinant of sustained poverty alleviation.

Structural transformation, economic diversification and logistics are some of the issues explored in this new book from the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT). The volume's essays use various methodologies to provide new perspectives on the region's growth and prospects. Individual chapter's focus on: trade policy in Nepal; logistics in Bangladesh and Thailand; Sri Lankan exports; and SMEs in Cambodia.

The handbook is a practical introduction to preparing to negotiate preferential trade agreements. It is aimed particularly at those who may not have extensive negotiating experience, and it seeks to explain the main steps needed to arrive at an agreement, make it enter into force and monitor its implementation. One special value of this handbook is in its coverage of the preparatory stages for negotiations.

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Numerous academic and policy papers as well as seminar and conference materials have been dedicated to either regional trade agreements or international production networks, yet only a few studies have addressed the linkages between these two important areas of economic integration. This study, “Fighting Irrelevance: Regional Trade Agreements and International Production Networks in Asia”, provides new evidence from selected sectors of some of the Asian economies that contributes towards closing this gap.

The 2008/9 global economic crisis triggered changes in real economies and trade in all countries, including those in Asia, which adopted the so-called export-led growth model. With these drastic changes in trade flows, and the need to counteract potential adverse effects, the old debate on the advantages and flaws of the export-led model has re-opened, adding new concerns to the debate such as aspects of sustainability and inclusivity.

Gaining a better understanding of the service economy and its linkages to other key sectors; identifying the types of policies that can sustain the development of a knowledge-based economy; developing the analytical tools and proper metrics with which to gauge with greater precision the impacts of service sector reforms, policies and trade policy commitments on the growth and development of nations and how such spoils are divided among citizens; and enhancing the service sector data upon which sound policy decisions must ultimately rest; are all centrally important elements to countries’ lo

Asian international production networks (IPNs) started by the changes of MNCs’ strategies on international fragmentation of production in responding to rapid globalization, technology changes, and increasingly ope n trade and investment environments in Asian countries in the 1980s. The phenomenon was fuelled in the 1990s by the opening of China which ha s emerged as a global centre for manufacturing assembly. Currently, the grow ing IPNs have a significant impact on merchandise trade patterns and regional integration among Asian economies.

It is almost taken as a matter of definition that information technology (IT) is an integral part of trade facilitation (TF), the objective of which is to expedite the movement, clearance and release of goods, including goods in transit. Yet, for many developing and least developed countries, IT remains a distant but desirable goal. Although there are many and varied reasons behind this situation, it is not the purpose of this chapter to lay them out. However, there appears to be some confusion regarding IT in TF.