Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Eko NM Saputro
One of the priority areas for regional cooperation at the East Asia Summit (EAS) has been finance. At the last EAS Leaders’ summit in Hanoi last year this area was given special attention along with education, energy, disaster management and avian flu prevention.
The Leaders’ focus on financial cooperation was both timely and relevant in the current uncertain economic climate. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF
A striking feature of globalisation in modern times has been the huge growth of international capital flows.
Openness to international capital has enabled the rapid growth of the emerging economies, facilitated the productive deployment of investment funds as well as technology and other resources around the world and has helped to lift millions out of poverty in these countries. Read more…
Author: Jonathan D. Ostry, IMF
The debate over how to manage capital flows to emerging market economies ebbs and flows, much like the flows themselves.
But, it’s a hot topic in the news again for good reason. Short-term fluctuations in capital flows are occurring against the backdrop of a structural trend increase. Investors have woken up to the higher risk-adjusted returns these economies are likely to continue to offer. Read more…
Author: Xueli Huang, RMIT University
Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has surged since 2003.
In 2010, China’s FDI reached US$57.9 billion, nearly 20 times 2003 levels, and accounted for over 5 per cent of global FDI. Since 2007, Australia has become one of the world’s largest destinations for Chinese FDI. Read more…
Author: William Overholt, Harvard University
It is doubtful that Washington politicians understand just how important the IMF leadership decision is. This decision is crucial because of a history that Americans have largely forgotten.
During the Asian Crisis of 1997-8, the IMF made two decisions that continue to threaten the world’s ability to have a coherent financial crisis management policy based on a single institution.
Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU
So what’s the problem? Does it matter if the WTO’s Doha Round is prematurely pronounced dead?
For Asia and the Pacific, it matters, seriously. Read more…
Author: Ernest Bower, CSIS
On April 9, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III stood on the blood stained soil of Bataan province and reminded us of the amazing resilience of the human spirit, the ability to forgive and reconcile and the powerful hope intrinsic to those two facts.
Tens of thousands of Filipinos and Americans gave their lives fighting the Japanese army on this hallowed ground a lifetime ago. In soft rain that reminded those present of the tears of heaven, President Aquino solemnly observed that former enemies were now best friends. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF
The idea of a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, at least among the nine Asia Pacific countries that are currently signed up for the negotiations, has been hyped up over the last year as the Obama administration declared it to be the way forward on a new American engagement with Asia.
The TPP initiative — which includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United States — now tops Washington’s trade agenda barring the unfinished business of FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama. Read more…
Author: Ross Buckley, UNSW
There are curious aspects of the proposal by the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) to take over the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). However, Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan’s decision to block it is not one of them.
The relevant legislative test is whether this takeover is in the national interest. Read more…
Author: Maria Monica Wihardja, CSIS, Indonesia
This year’s BRIC Summit, to be held in mid-April in China, will mark the entry of South Africa into membership of the group.
The economies of BRICS (now with the addition of ‘S’ for South Africa) will also prepare for the G20 Summit to be held later this year. BRICS, for which the combined economy is predicted to overtake the US by 2018, is not only an emerging economic power but also an increasingly influential political power; and China, acting as a global regime maker instead of a regime taker, is leading the way. Read more…
Author: Benjamin Reilly, ANU and SAIS
Julia Gillard’s visit to Washington has so far followed a familiar script.
Among the Prime Minister’s first official pronouncements were a $3 million bequest to Washington’s famous Vietnam memorial to highlight Australia’s role as a US ally, and a bilateral meeting with President Obama which stressed what he later called a ‘shared sense of open spaces and a pioneer spirit’ between both countries.
Yesterday, in a speech to the powerful US Chamber of Commerce, Ms Gillard bestowed similarly lavish praise on her hosts, wading into the politically-charged issue of American ‘exceptionalism’ — the popular US conceit that it is both different from and (by implication) superior to other nations. Read more…
Authors: Karl P. Sauvant and Ken Davies, Columbia University
So far, the discussion of revaluation of the yuan has been almost exclusively about the impact on China’s trade balance.
But it is at least as important to ask what effect it may have on the country’s inward foreign direct investment (IFDI), which plays such a crucial role in China’s economic development, and its outward FDI (OFDI), which is receiving increased attention worldwide. Read more…
Author: Razeen Sally, ECIPE and LSE
World trade is recovering from its steepest fall since the 1930s — part of the biggest ‘deglobalisation’ since the Great Depression. Trade liberalisation has stalled globally and there is a climate of defensiveness on trade policy.
The West’s financial crisis translates into a deeper-than-normal recession and a slower-than-average recovery. In contrast, most emerging markets retained reasonably solid banks and balance sheets. That enabled them to rebound quickly, not least through fast ‘reglobalisation.’
Author: Peter Drysdale
China’s current account surpluses are the target of growing criticism in the international policy community. They are seen as a central element in the imbalance in the global economy.
They are seen as a source of vulnerability to a second round crisis in international financial markets. Read more…
Author: Tom Schiller, Standard & Poor’s
Despite good progress, Asia Pacific still has a long way to go before its local corporate bond markets realise their full potential. Fostering national credit cultures built on transparency, creditors’ rights, and independent and objective credit analysis is essential.
Nearly every Asia Pacific government has started building local corporate debt markets in order to benefit from the diversification that such markets provide. Read more…