Trade perspectives between Latin America and Asia Pacific

Includes bibliography

Trade facilitation within the forum, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

In terms of content, this article follows along the same lines as bulletin fal no. 167, although it reviews exclusively developments in the area of trade facilitation within the asia-pacific economic cooperation forum (apec). thus, the information contained in bulletin 167 has been updated and expanded. more analytical elements have also been incorporated.

Port planning in Latin America and the evolution of container traffic with Asia-Pacific

This edition of the FAL Bulletin addr esses port planning in Latin America and delivers an initial forecast on container traffic between Latin America and Asia- Pacific through 2015. This bulletin also summarizes the principal conclusions of the Expert Workshop organized by the Unit of Infrastructure Services, in conjunction with ESCAP and the Korea Maritime Institute (KMI) in October 2009, in Panama.

Towards an uncertain future? The strengthening of Japan's autonomy in Asia-Pacific

Recently, Japan has been increasing tensions with China regarding the Pinnacle Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Due to the Chinese military development, Japan has been working on its political and military strengthening in Asia. This essay presents two possible scenarios for Japan.

Characteristics and comprehensiveness of adult HIV care and treatment programmes in Asia-Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas: results of a site assessment conducted by the International epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) Collaboration

INTRODUCTION HIV care and treatment programmes worldwide are transforming as they push to deliver universal access to essential prevention, care and treatment services to persons living with HIV and their communities. The characteristics and capacity of these HIV programmes affect patient outcomes and quality of care. Despite the importance of ensuring optimal outcomes, few studies have addressed the capacity of HIV programmes to deliver comprehensive care. We sought to describe such capacity in HIV programmes in seven regions worldwide. METHODS Staff from 128 sites in 41 countries participating in the International epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS completed a site survey from 2009 to 2010, including sites in the Asia-Pacific region (n=20), Latin America and the Caribbean (n=7), North America (n=7), Central Africa (n=12), East Africa (n=51), Southern Africa (n=16) and West Africa (n=15). We computed a measure of the comprehensiveness of care based on seven World Health Organization-recommended essential HIV services. RESULTS Most sites reported serving urban (61%; region range (rr): 33-100%) and both adult and paediatric populations (77%; rr: 29-96%). Only 45% of HIV clinics that reported treating children had paediatricians on staff. As for the seven essential services, survey respondents reported that CD4+ cell count testing was available to all but one site, while tuberculosis (TB) screening and community outreach services were available in 80 and 72%, respectively. The remaining four essential services - nutritional support (82%), combination antiretroviral therapy adherence support (88%), prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) (94%) and other prevention and clinical management services (97%) - were uniformly available. Approximately half (46%) of sites reported offering all seven services. Newer sites and sites in settings with low rankings on the UN Human Development Index (HDI), especially those in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief focus countries, tended to offer a more comprehensive array of essential services. HIV care programme characteristics and comprehensiveness varied according to the number of years the site had been in operation and the HDI of the site setting, with more recently established clinics in low-HDI settings reporting a more comprehensive array of available services. Survey respondents frequently identified contact tracing of patients, patient outreach, nutritional counselling, onsite viral load testing, universal TB screening and the provision of isoniazid preventive therapy as unavailable services. CONCLUSIONS This study serves as a baseline for on-going monitoring of the evolution of care delivery over time and lays the groundwork for evaluating HIV treatment outcomes in relation to site capacity for comprehensive care.

Exchange Market Pressure on the Pound-Dollar Exchange Rate: 1925-1931

An investigation of exchange market pressure against the pound sterling during the inter-war period. The main findings are that a) the behavior of UK fundamentals relative to those of the USA help to explain exchange market pressure against the pound; b) during the run up to devaluation in September 1931 the monetary authorities in the UK were acting to reduce domestic credit; but that c) additional pressure was brought against the pound from speculative sources. These findings relate to current thinking on the choice of exchange rate regime as even well behaved fundamentals may not be sufficient to sustain a currency on its peg.

Globesity: Food marketing to children in Asia-Pacific A systematic review

Food advertising and promotion to children has been identified as one possible contributing factor to the childhood obesity pandemic. Food marketing to children in "western" society consists mainly of foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS), such as pre-sugared breakfast cereals; sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs); confectionary; savory snacks; and fast food. Of these heavily marketed items consumption of, SSBs, savory snacks and fast foods have been found to contribute to the childhood obesity pandemic. A systematic review was conducted to determine what types of products are being promoted and what types of techniques food marketers are using to promote these foods throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The review of current literature, while not abundant, clearly showed marketing styles and content similar to those in western countries were being employed in the Asia-Pacific. Advertisements in this geographic region often took on a local flair to make them more identifiable to children and adolescents in their respective regions and countries, due to the numerous cultural and traditional differences. Children in these developing parts of the world may be just as, if not more, susceptible to these advertising techniques than their counterparts in the west.^

Trade and Business Cycle Correlations in Asia-Pacific

Recent empirical studies challenge the traditional theory of optimum currency areas by arguing that a monetary union enhances trade and business cycle co-movements among its member countries sufficiently as to obviate the need for national monetary policy. This paper examines the empirical relationship between trade and business cycle correlations among thirteen Asia-Pacific countries, paying particular attention to the structural characteristics of their economies and other issues not explored fully in the literature. According to our result, although trade is relevant to the business cycles of individual countries, the main determinant of their international correlations is not the geographical structure of their trade but what they produce and export --more specifically the extent to which their output and exports are concentrated on electronic products.

Interindustrial Structure in the Asia-Pacific Region: Growth and Integration, by Using 2000 AIO Table

Over the past 20 years Asian countries have achieved a certain degree of economic growth and at the same time deepened spatial interdependence. In January 2006, IDE completed the 2000 Asian International Input-Output Table, which covers eight major East Asian countries/regions as well as Japan and the United States. Given the dynamic changes in the economies of East Asia, this paper attempts to summarize the characteristics and their patterns of change in industrial structures and trade structures of the countries/regions in the Asia-Pacific region from the three viewpoints of time, space, and industry, by using the AIO table for 1985, 1990, 1995, and 2000.

Industrial Networks between China and the Countries of the Asia-Pacific Region

This paper investigates the changes in the structures of industrial networks that have occurred in the Asia-Pacific region in line with the rapid growth of the Chinese economy. Analyses using international input-output tables revealed that during the 1990s, there was a significant increase in the dependence of Asian countries’ manufacturing industries, such as textiles and electronics, on China’s industries, though industries in Japan and the United States remain important as the main suppliers of industries in Asian countries.

Production Networks and Spatial Economic Interdependence: An International Input-Output Analysis of the Asia-Pacific Region

The Asia-Pacific Region has enjoyed remarkable economic growth in the last three decades. This rapid economic growth can be partially attributed to the global spread of production networks, which has brought about major changes in spatial interdependence among economies within the region. By applying an Input-Output based spatial decomposition technique to the Asian International Input-Output Tables for 1985 and 2000, this paper not only analyzes the intrinsic mechanism of spatial economic interdependence, but also shows how value added, employment and CO2 emissions induced are distributed within the international production networks.

Central bank intervention and exchange rate behaviour : empirical evidence for India

This paper examines the causal relationship between central bank intervention and exchange returns in India. Using monthly data from December 1997 to December 2011, the empirical results derived from the CCF approach of Cheung and Ng (1996) suggest that there is causality-in-variance from exchange rate returns to central bank intervention, but not vice versa. These findings are robust in the sense that they hold in cases where the returns were measured from either the spot rate or the forward rate. Therefore, the results of this paper suggest that the Indian central bank has intervened in the foreign exchange market to respond to exchange rate volatility, although the volatility has not been influenced by central bank intervention in the form of net purchases of foreign currency in the market.