Globalización, integración y comercio inclusivo en América Latina. Textos seleccionados 2010-2014

En el actual contexto de globalización económica, el tema de la inserción internacional de la región cobra una renovada importancia. La presente publicación, la segunda de la colección “Páginas Selectas de la CEPAL”, contiene extractos de documentos publicados desde 2010 y que abordan diversos aspectos de dicha temática. Entre éstos se destacan la participación regional en las cadenas mundiales y regionales de valor, la irrupción de China como un socio comercial crecientemente influyente, los logros y desafíos pendientes del proceso de integración regional en su vertiente económica y comercial, y las posibles implicancias para América Latina y el Caribe de las negociaciones comerciales megarregionales actualmente en curso. Como trasfondo de todos los textos seleccionados se encuentra el vínculo entre la participación regional en el comercio internacional y el logro de un crecimiento inclusivo. Este último se entiende como un crecimiento capaz de contribuir a la reducción de la heterogeneidad estructural mediante un aumento del empleo, la productividad y el ingreso, mejorando el bienestar de la mayoría y reduciendo la desigualdad

Reprimarização da pauta de exportação e a atual inserção internacional brasileira (2000-2014)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Incidência de barreiras técnicas ambientais chinesas sobre a pauta exportadora brasileira: 2001-2014

As relações entre Brasil e China vêm se estreitando ao longo dos anos, principalmente após a entrada da China na OMC em 2001, o que os tornou grandes parceiros comerciais. Esse padrão de comércio é marcado pela exportação de produtos brasileiros abundantes em recursos naturais e importação de produtos chineses de alto uso tecnológico. Sendo assim, é notável que a grande expansão da economia Chinesa reproduz grandes impactos no meio ambiente. Entretanto, o governo Chinês mostra sinais de preocupação e está buscando formas de amenizar os problemas. Como a prioridade do governo é a prevenção de mais danos ambientais, o uso de barreiras não tarifárias de caráter ambiental é cada vez mais frequente. O presente trabalho analisa o uso dessas barreiras técnicas e seus impactos na exportação de produtos brasileiros à China. Foram calculados coeficientes que mostram, junto a outros dados empíricos, que há uma forte proteção dos produtos Reatores Nucleares (HS84), Máquinas e aparelhos elétricos (HS85) e Automóveis e tratores (HS87) quanto a essas barreiras

Australia's Foreign Economic Policy: a 'State-Society Coalition' Approach and a Historical Overview

This paper aims to explain the historical development of Australia's foreign economic policy by using an analytical framework called a 'state-society coalition' approach. This approach focuses on virtual coalitions of state and society actors that share 'belief systems' and hold similar policy ideas, goals and preferences, as basic units (policy subsystems) of policy making. Major policy changes occur when a dominant coalition is replaced by another. The paper argues that, in Australia, there have been three major state-society coalitions in the foreign economic policy issue area: 'protectionists', 'trade liberalisers' and 'optional bilateralists'. The rise and fall of these coalitions resulted in distinctive shifts of Australia's foreign economic policy in the 1980s towards unilateral and multilateral liberalisation and in the late 1990s towards bilateral trade and investment arrangements.

Chairmanship in ASEAN+3:A Shared Rule of Behavior

ASEAN+3 is a cooperative framework among ASEAN members and the countries of Japan, China and Korea. It functions at the senior official, ministerial and summit levels. This article concerns how institutions in ASEAN+3 affect development of the direction and nature of this framework. ASEAN+3 is regarded as a loose framework that has regularized meetings as its main activity but has no organizational settings such as the secretariat. Little institutional analysis has been conducted on the development of this framework. This article introduces 'Chairmanship' as an analytical concept in which the chair or chairing member plays an important role in preparing and managing meetings. 'Chairmanship' is therefore an institution with an organizational element. It is also a shared rule of behavior among member states in that the chair's roles are not explicitly written in documents. Thus, it can be argued that the ASEAN+3 framework has an institution with an organizational element that affects development of its characteristics.

日中経済関係の今後－「対中ODA中止合意」を超えて

日中間では、外交関係が冷え切っていた時にも経済関係は好調を持続していた。実際、両国間貿易、日本の対中直接投資ともに急増し、かつその内容も高度化の様相を示している。当然さまざまな経済摩擦も発生しているが、問題は、摩擦が経済分野に留まらず2005年春の「反日騒動」に見られたように政治問題化したり、逆に政治問題が経済摩擦をもたらす土壌が両国関係に残っていることだろう。本稿ではまず、両国の経済が相互補完関係を深めている現状を確認し、次に経済摩擦の実態と背景を整理する。そして最後にこうした作業を踏まえて、今後の日中経済関係のあり方を探ってみたい。

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.

Development of Border Economic Zones in Thailand: Expansion of Border Trade and Formation of Border Economic Zones

In the wake of economic globalization and development in Thailand, movement of people and commodities at the Thai borders is also becoming pronounced. Economic interdependence between Thailand and neighboring countries is growing through border customhouses. As a policy, Thailand is trying to stimulate trade and investment with neighboring countries following the ACMECS (Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy) scheme. In this report, first, movement of people and goods at the borders will be examined. Second, clarification of where and how development is proceeding will be presented. Last, this study will attempt to review the perspectives of policies on neighboring countries after Thaksin.

Recent trends in Asian integration and Japanese participation

In East Asia, de facto integration is taking place because Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are flourishing in the region. ASEAN aims to form an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 with the completion of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). Surrounding countries have been competing with each other to forge FTAs or EPAs with ASEAN, including China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, and India. As a result, ASEAN has become a trading hub in East Asia. Bilateral FTAs/EPAs are also partly in place among 16 countries (ASEAN + 6). These economic ties in trade, services and investment are accelerating this region’s development as the world’s largest production base and biggest consumption market, helping to turn around the global recession in the aftermath of the so-called Lehman Shock. However, some problems also need to be pointed out in the East Asian integration such as the spaghetti bowl effect, severe competition, labor issues, environmental destruction and power struggles.

Skill distribution and comparative advantage: a comparison of China and India

This paper empirically examines the different comparative advantages of two emerging economic giants, China and India, in relation to the different skill distribution patterns in each country. By utilizing industry export data on China and India from 1983 to 2000, we find that a country with a greater dispersion of skills (i.e., India, especially in the earlier years) has higher exports in industries with shorter production chains, whereas a country with a more equal dispersion of skills (i.e., China, especially in the later years) is found to have higher exports in industries with longer production chains. The causal relationship is fairly robust across different specifications. This empirical evidence supports our assumption that the likely mechanism for these results is the negative impact of low-skilled workers on input quality, which accumulates and becomes larger as the length of production chains and the proportion of low-skilled workers in the economy increase.

Chapter 6 Economic integration and changes in industrial location in Vietnam

Vietnam has been praised for its achievements in economic growth and success in poverty reduction over the last two decades. The incidence of poverty reportedly fell from 58.1% in 1993 to 19.5% in 2004 (VASS [2006, 13]). The country is also considered to have only a moderate level of aggregate economic inequality by international comparisons. As of the early 2000s, Vietnam’s consumption-based Gini coefficient is found to be comparable to that of other countries with similar levels of per capita GDP. The Gini index did increase between 1993 and 2004, but rather slowly, from 0.34 to 0.37 (VASS [2006, 13]). Yet, as the country moves on with its market oriented reforms, the question of inequality has been highlighted in policy and academic discourses. In particular, it is pointed out that socio-economic inequalities between regions (or provinces) are significant and have been widening behind aggregate figures (NCSSH [2001], Mekong Economics [2005], VASS [2006]). Between 1993 and 2004, while real per capita expenditure increased in all regions, it grew fastest in those regions with the highest per capita expenditures and vice versa, resulting in greater regional disparities (VASS [2006, 37]). A major contributing factor to such regional inequalities is the uneven distribution of industry within the country. According to the Statistical Yearbook of Vietnam, of the country's gross industrial output in 2007, over 50% belongs to the South East region, close to 25% to the Red River Delta, and about 10% to the Mekong River Delta. All remaining regions share some 10% of the country's gross industrial output. At a quick glance, the South East increased its share of the total industrial gross output in the 1990s, while the Red River Delta started to gain ground in more recent years. How can the government deal with regional disparities is a valid question. In order to offer an answer, it is necessary in the first place to grasp the trend of disparities as well as its background. To that end, this paper is a preparatory endeavor. Regional disparities in industrial activities can essentially be seen as a result of the location decisions of enterprises. While the General Statistics Office (GSO) of Vietnam has conducted one enterprise census (followed by annual enterprise surveys) and two stages of establishment censuses since 2000, sectorally and geographically disaggregated data are not readily available. Therefore, for the moment, we will draw on earlier studies of industrial location and the determinants of enterprises’ location decisions in Vietnam. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. The following two sections deal with the country context. Section 2 will outline some major developments in Vietnam’s international economic relations that may affect sub-national location of industry. According to the theory of spatial economics, economic integration is seen as a major driver of changes in industrial location, both between and within countries (Nishikimi [2008]). Section 3, on the other hand, will consider some possible factors affecting geographic distribution of industry in the domestic sphere. In Section 4, existing literature on industrial and firm location will be examined, and Section 5 will briefly summarize the findings and suggest some areas for future research.

Production fragmentation, upstreamness, and value-added : evidence from factory Asia 1990-2005

We exploit the recent release of the 2005 Asian Input-Output Matrix to dress a picture of the geographic fragmentation of value added in Factory Asia from 1990 to 2005. We document 3 stylized facts. The first is that the average share of foreign value added embedded in production rose by about 7 percentage points between 1990 and 2005, from 9% to 16%. The second is that, contrary to popular belief, China's production embeds a smaller share of foreign value added than other Factory Asia countries'. Between 1990 and 2005 among Factory Asia countries China grew most after Japan as a source of value added to other countries' production. Third, country-industries at the upstream and downstream extremities of the supply chain embed a smaller share of foreign value added than those with intermediate levels of upstreamness.

The turn to the East. The flawed diversification of Russian foreign policy. OSW Point of View Number 44, November 2014

The ‘turn to the East’ proclaimed by Russia in 2010 has failed to bring about a fundamental breakthrough in her relations with Asian countries, nor has it produced impulses for the economic modernization of Russia’s Far Eastern territories. Although the energisation of Russian policy towards Asia which has taken place under this slogan has diversified Russian foreign policy somewhat, this diversification has two weak points: Firstly, it has occurred only in the political sphere. The share of Asian countries in Russia’s foreign economic relations has not risen significantly in comparison with the share of European and North American countries. Secondly, the ‘turn to the East’ has turned out primarily to be a turn towards China. In all spheres – diplomatic, economic, energy and military – it is Beijing that has become the most important Asian partner for Moscow. The result is that the policy that aimed to limit the excessive – in the Kremlin’s view – dependence of Russia on the West is likely to turn Russia into a ‘junior partner’ of the People’s Republic of China.

Economic development and international migration in comparative perspective /

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