Looking Toward the “New Era” Features and Background of the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement

This paper examines Thai-Japanese relations through analysis of EPA. There are two questions. The first involves the features of JTEPA as an EPA. By scrutinizing the features of the EPA, we would like to approach the institutional framework of the “new era” which will be brought about by JTEPA. The second question is how did the governments of Thailand and Japan come to conclude JTEPA? By reviewing the focal points of the negotiations, we will describe the background of the formation and aims of JTEPA. Finally, we conclude that JTEPA is a culmination of the existing Thai-Japanese relations, and was built based upon the existing divergence of economic institutions. At the same time it upgrades the bilateral partnership to a framework for multilateral cooperation by considering assistance toward Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and Vietnam. The author would like to emphasize that JTEPA was designed based on the idea of a further integration of CLMV and Thailand, an original member of ASEAN.

NEW ROLE OF COOPERATIVES IN ETHIOPIA: THE CASE OF ETHIOPIAN COFFEE FARMERS COOPERATIVES

Since 1991, policies of economic liberalization in Ethiopia have been effective in releasing the economy from rigid state control. At the same time, they have also exposed Ethiopian people to domestic and international free market competition. In African countries, the retreat of governments from rural development due to economic liberalization policies has led to the re-evaluation of the role of cooperatives. Since 1999, in Ethiopia, several coffee farmers cooperative unions have been established to support peasants who are handicapped by their lack of negotiating power in the global economy. Coffee cooperatives have become market-oriented and are now relatively democratic compared to the former Marxist cooperatives of the previous regime. Thus far, these coffee cooperatives have provided higher profits to coffee farmers than have private traders. The actual volume of purchase, however, is limited　due to financial constraints. Because of this, the majority of cooperatives continues to rely on conventional marketing channels rather than on unions. Considering their weak financial condition, it is too early to judge the sustainability of the cooperatives because international prices have been high recently, and it is not yet clear how they would survive a downward international price trend.