This paper assesses Bangladesh’s readiness to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) from the perspective of services trade. In Bangladesh, services exports have grown rapidly but remain narrow in scope and overshadowed by rising imports, leading to persistent deficits. RCEP countries account for a substantial share of Bangladesh’s services trade. While Bangladesh demonstrates competitiveness in construction and professional services, it lags in ICT, transport, and travel services.

This paper evaluates Sri Lanka’s readiness to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), with a focus on services trade. Services exports have grown moderately since 2015, led by travel, transport, and business process outsourcing, while imports have contracted, resulting in a services trade surplus by 2023. Revealed comparative advantage analysis shows clear strengths in travel, transport, construction, and other business services, but persistent weaknesses in ICT, financial, and intellectual property services.

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, which accounts for over 50 per cent of the world’s population and over 35 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. The region is growing at higher than the global growth rate and is expected to continue on a high growth trajectory. With high economic growth, the APAC region has become the largest e-commerce market in the world.

The study estimates partial and general equilibrium impacts of trade digitalization on trade flows using data from the UN Trade Digitalization Index (TDI) 2024 and a structural gravity model. This approach, unlike earlier gravity model studies on the topic, allows for the derivation of both trade and welfare effects associated with trade digitalization. Estimated partial equilibrium effects suggest that a 10 percent increase in trade digitalization may increase trade flows by approximately 8 percent globally. Based on the gravity model estimates, a general equilibrium model is constructed.

Several commentaries are written about de-dollarization. We analyze the factors which are contributing to de-dollarization and provide an alternative assessment. On the economic front, the US economy's reduced fiscal and financial capacity can strain economic trust in the dollar. The internationalization of the Chinese currency is another factor. Additionally, a lower forecast for the world economic growth outlook, a higher debt financing in the US and a war in Europe are also leading to central banks around the world buying more gold and reducing investment in the US treasury bonds.

The digital connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region is primarily shaped by the availability of ICT infrastructure, the nature of regulatory policies, and the dynamics of competition among service providers.

This paper explores the potential opportunities and challenges digital trade poses for women traders globally and in Asia-Pacific. This paper highlights policy areas using a gendered approach to digital trade. Given the varied and interrelated issues, a public-private-societal effort is needed to help women traders. A mixed methods research approach to conduct situation analysis is used in this paper. It predominantly reviews existing literature, supported by descriptive statistics.

Why do export sales increasingly concentrate among a few “superstars”? This paper is the first to argue that the expansion of the Internet matters for this phenomenon. Using firm-level customs transaction data from 11 developing countries, we show that the spread of the internet steepens the slope of the rank-sales relationship among exporters. This shift implies a more skewed distribution of sales toward the top exporters. Furthermore, incumbent superstar exporters are more likely to retain their status owing to a better Internet.