The trade facilitation negotiations have been one of the more active topics in the Doha negotiations. At the same time, extensive reforms have been put in place among WTO members, including by a number of developing Members. Some developing country reforms have received assistance from developed Members and from development agencies, many have enjoyed solid support from commercial interests within the countries and have been financed from own resources.

Since the launch of the major liberalisation programme in the early Nineties, the Indian government has continued to exhibit a general commitment towards regulatory reforms while working toward market openness. This becomes particularly interesting given that during the 1980s India was one of the most protected economies in the world. The level of protection declined substantially with the on set of economic reforms in the 1990s.

There is now increasing recognition of the critical importance of trade facilitation to further international commerce, accelerate growth, and enhance welfare if not alleviate poverty among trading nations. But there is also increasing appreciation that it is not just attention to the barriers and bottlenecks behind-the-border that are involved in trade facilitation (TF), it also calls for coherence between policies and regulations at the border and inside the border.

The special needs and difficulties of landlocked countries as they seek to achieve integration into the global economy have been increasingly recognized by the international community as requiring particular attention. Correspondingly, the proper mix of domestic policies and trade policy reforms for landlocked countries present a complicated agenda due to the inevitable requirements of economic structural adjustment and improved market access required for effective global integration.

In recent years, South Asia has received growing attention as a region that is integrating successfully into the world economy. South Asia has successfully converted preferential trading agreement (SAPTA) into a free trade agreement (SAFTA) in July 2006. However, intra-subregional transit trade volume is still miniscule in eastern South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal), compared to its extra-subregional transit trade. About 2 percent of transit trade of eastern South Asia is conducted within the subregion, whereas the rest 98 percent is extra- subregional.

Asia has undoubtedly benefited greatly from globalization, with many countries of the region relying to a significant extent on international trade and investment as their main engine for economic growth and development. As the economies of the region continue to grow at the fastest pace of any other regions in the world, however, some have begun to question how well the gains are shared within the countries themselves. Indeed, there is some evidence that higher economic growth has led to increases in inequality in the countries of the region.

Liberalization of the business environment as well as increased international integration in Viet Nam have resulted in the rapid expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in general and export-oriented small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs) in particular, especially since 2000. More than 95 per cent of formal enterprises belong to the SME category. Around 17 per cent of SMMEs are involved in export activities.

Economic integration in the European Union1 has, arguably, been one of the most significant developments in the global economy in the last half-century. How could countries that just a few decades earlier were at war and culturally disjointed now aim at closer economic and political integration, and appear en route to forming one virtual “country” under a proposed European Constitution? The formation of the European Union, the adoption of the single currency, and many other erstwhile targets that were deemed “too difficult”, but which are now realities, have proved many skeptics wrong.

Today, Nepal is one of the most liberalized countries in the South Asian region. However, growth performance has been very poor in recent years, with sluggish exports and stagnating investment. In this context, a closer examination of the linkages between trade and investment is critically important from a policy point of view. There are highly liberal trade- and investment-related policies supplemented by important Acts. In the aftermath of liberalization that began in the early 1990s, both trade and investment increased substantially. However, that could not be sustained for long...

This research paper intends to analyse: (a) the impacts of ASEAN trade liberalization on the macroeconomy variables – gross domestic product (GDP), Terms of Trade (ToT), balance of trade, inflation and real wage – and agricultural industries (output, exports and imports) in the ASEAN 6 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Viet Nam); and (b) the impact of trade liberalization on income distribution in Indonesia. A multi-country and multi-commodity computable general equilibrium (CGE) GTAP model has been used as the main tool of analysis.