Although, some of the Asian economies, like, China, India and Viet Nam, are growing at a faster pace they are not doing well in terms of development of basic capabilities in terms of education, health and skill formation. This we found when we ranked countries in terms of Social Development Index and compared them with ranking in terms of GDP growth rate alone. In fact, the not so fast growing economies, like the Republic of Korea, do well in terms of distribution of resources towards its average citizen and in terms of other development criteria.

South Asia has been considered as the least integrated region in the world despite its attempts to liberalize trade using various unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral arrangements. It has long been argued that the limited success of South Asia to liberalize regional trade was due to limited tariff reductions and remaining barriers present in trade agreements; less complementarities in production and consumption; and political friction among the countries.

The fierce competition in the global textiles and clothing (T&C) market unleashed by the expiry of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) on 31 December 2004 has adversely affected Nepal’s ready-made garment (RMG) industry, which ranks among the two top export products of the country.

Existing empirical studies on trade costs and trade facilitation largely focus on aggregate impacts of reform due to data availability. We take a step toward filling in this gap in literature. Using the World Bank Enterprises Surveys, the study extends the scope of empirical literature to firm dimension with a focus on SMEs. For Asia countries, we find that improvement in trade facilitation indicators tend to increase the probability that SMEs will become exporter -- as well as their export propensity.

Thailand has been actively involved in the GMS programme since its creation. While intraregional trade has increased substantially, there are concerns about how the programme fits with the ASEAN, ASEAN-China and other triangular initiatives, as well as the slow implementation of some of the main initiatives.

This paper estimates the trade potential for India using the augmented gravity model and then attempts to determine the importance of trade remedies. Based on panel data, this gravity model is the first-ever attempt to estimate India’s trade potential in the pre- and post- global economic and financial crisis period. The estimates of India’s global trade potential reveal that the magnitude of India’s trade potential is at its maximum in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Africa and Latin America.

The role of trade facilitation in increasing and maximizing benefits of trade has been widely acknowledged. In this regard, the use of Information Technology (IT) in trade facilitation has received considerable attention in policy circles given its potential to reduce costs, paper work and processing times involved in trading goods across borders. Countries around the world including Sri Lanka have automated their import/export processes with some countries having more success than others.

Following widespread economic reforms, India undertook focused and dedicated trade facilitation (TF) initiatives for improving infrastructure and the regulatory regime dealing with its external sector. Information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES) are prominently placed centre-stage of the trade process reforms. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) spearhead the TF initiatives, supplemented by the Information Technology Act (2000) and eTrade Initiative of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI).

The performance of Asia-Pacific countries in terms of both trade and business facilitation varies greatly. However, with a few exceptions, developing countries in the region have much room for improvement. This paper evaluates the potential contribution of both trade and business facilitation measures to trade and export competitiveness, as well as the potential gains from adopting a more integrated and coherent approach to trade and business (investment) facilitation.

The paper attempts to assess the benefits of Duty-Free and Quota-Free Market (DFQF) access initiatives of the Republic of Korea for least developed countries (LDCs), which have been in place since 1 January 2008. Following a brief introduction on the background of this initiative, this paper examines the exports profile of LDCs, reviews the DFQF scheme of the Republic of Korea, and assesses the potential benefits of the DFQF scheme for LDCs as well as Bangladesh.