Word: asia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...coming up with increasing frequency. At a meeting of regional leaders hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Thailand last month, Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama proposed an "East Asian community" that would bind together Japan, China, South Korea and the 10 countries of Southeast Asia, plus India, Australia and New Zealand. Hatoyama - who recently opined that "the era of U.S.-led globalism is coming to an end" - suggested this zone have its own common currency and could some day "lead the world." Less ambitiously, China has suggested a smaller group that would include Southeast Asia plus...
...logic for closer Asian economic integration is becoming more compelling as intraregional trade becomes more important when compared with Asia's trade with the West. According to HSBC, the share of Asia's exports to the U.S. and Europe declined to 30% of the regional total in 2008, down from nearly 40% in 1998. Over the same period, intraregional exports as a share of total exports in emerging Asia rose to 54% from 46%. "Intra-Asian trade flows are the fastest growing in the world," says Lawrence Webb, global head of trade and supply chain at HSBC. This trend...
...easier for companies to import and export their goods within Europe, says HSBC's Webb. Establishing a common Asian currency similar to the euro would allow companies to ship goods or arrange credit with less exposure to currency risk. "A barrier to trade over the last year in Asia has been fluctuating currencies," Webb says. "For a small- to medium-sized business, it could mean the difference between profit and loss...
...rules would simplify the bewildering spaghetti bowl of bilateral trade agreements that have been signed between various Asian countries in recent years, executives say. Others, worried about their prospects in a China-led free-trade zone, are eager to see APEC take the lead. Says Kevin Thieneman, the Southeast Asia and India country manager for industrial-equipment giant Caterpillar: "There must be a realization by the Obama Administration that the U.S. is getting lapped when it comes to trade in Asia. There is a lack of understanding in the U.S. about how fast the bilateral trade agreements are happening...
...Historical enmities simmering between nations like China and Japan could make close cooperation impossible, as could divergent economic interests of poor developing countries like Vietnam and those of advancing industrial economies like South Korea. Another commonly cited impediment is cultural diversity. "Europe is in a sense a single civilization; Asia is not," says Ravi Menon, Permanent Secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry. Others question whether Asia's institutions are robust enough for an E.U.-style union. "Are political institutions mature enough in Asia to do what Europe did?" asks Cem Karacadag, a Singapore-based economist with Credit...