Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis trade and investment opportunities

In Asia and the Pacific, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain a critical source of employment creation (in many economies of Asia and the Pacific contributing 60% or more of jobs) and income generation. While SMEs enhance dynamism in economies by providing flexibility and fresh ideas, they can also stabilize societies by providing safety nets for disadvantaged workers. In this regard, the SME sector has occupied a prominent position in the development agenda of all developing economies in the region; thus, promotion of SME development has been regarded as an important policy issue in those economies.SMEs, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Regional, Global, Markets, Value chains, opportunities, apparel, garments

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis trade and investment opportunities

With the start of the global economic crisis, world foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows decreases by 16% in 2008, then dropped sharply by 37% in 2009 and gained a marginal 1% increase in 2010. The decrease was relatively more pronounced in the developed countries. For the first time, developing countries are expected to have absorbed more than half of global FDI flows in 2010.foreign direct, investment, FDI, economic crisis, Asia, Pacific, regional trade agreement,

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis trade and investment opportunities

Commercial services exports are slowly returning to their pre-crisis level, with global exports climbing by 8.3% from $3.4 trillion in 2009 to$3.7 trillion in 2010. Asia, and the Pacific, in particular developing Asia, is again leading the recovery, with a growth rate of more than 20% in 2010. This strong rise came after a slump in commercial services exports by almost 12% in 2009.Services, Trade, Trade, recovery, export, import, Asia, Pacific, international, tourism, computer, information, intraregional

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis trade and investment opportunities

The traditional developed economies of the Group of Three (G3)-the European Union, Japan and the United States- all face economic slowdown, and acceptance is growing that the Asia-Pacific region will be the world's next engine of economic growth. Developing economies in Asia and the Pacific are rapidly increasing their importance in the world economy, having performed robustly to make a quick recovery in 2010 and reach pre-crisis levels of economic activity while major industrial countries continue to struggle.Trade, Investment, Opportunities, European Union, Japan, United States, G3, Group of three, economic, growth, import, export, Asia, Pacific

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011: Post-crisis trade and investment opportunities

List of tables on trade performance indicatorsTrade performance indicator, trade share, import, export, Asia, Pacific

Trade Facilitaion in Asia and the Pacific: Which Policies and Measures affect Trade Costs the Most?

This paper presents findings from an initial analysis of new non-tariff trade cost estimates and their determinants, based on a bilateral database of comprehensive trade cost maintained by ESCAP. Although trade costs consist for the most part of non-tariff trade costs, tariff cuts accounted for a very significant portion of trade costs reduction between 1996-99 and 2004-07.Trade Cost, Trade Facilitation

Expanded Multiband Super-Nyquist CAP Modulation for Highly Bandlimited Organic Visible Light Communications

In this article, we experimentally demonstrate a novel expanded nonorthogonal multiband super-Nyquist carrier-less amplitude and phase (m-ESCAP) modulation for bandlimited organic visible light communication (VLC) systems. The proposed scheme has the same bandwidth requirement as the conventional m-CAP while breaking the orthogonality between subcarriers by purposely overlapping them. We compare m-ESCAP with the conventional m-CAP and a compressed nonorthogonal version of m-CAP (m-SCAP) in terms of measured bit error rate (BER) performance, bit rates, and spectral efficiencies. We show that the m-ESCAP system offers improvement in the bit rate of $\sim$ 10% and 20% compared to the m-CAP and m-SCAP, respectively, and in the spectral efficiency of $\sim$ 20% compared to m-CAP. These gains are achieved at the cost of increased BER, which, however, remains below the 7% forward error correction limit

Promoting Sustainable and Responsible Business in Asia and the Pacific: The Role of Government, Studies in Trade and Investment 72

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is widely accepted as the business sector's contribution to inclusive and sustainable development. Thus, government can harness the CSR agenda in pursuit of this goal. There are several reasons why governments should seek to promote CSR: greater social and environmental sustainability, market competitiveness, economic stability, and good governance. This policy-oriented paper identifies initiatives that policy-makers in the Asia Pacific region should duly consider for promoting CSR practices, at both the regional and national levels, and spanning domestic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large multinational enterprises (MNEs). The initiatives are diverse in focus and scope, although there is one common denominator: virtually none can be enacted by government alone. Any initiative to promote sustainable and responsible business needs to be sustainable in itself, and that in turn necessitates the active engagement and tangible inputs of the business community.corporate social responsibility, global compact, Asia and the Pacific, role of government, economic, social, environment, market competition, sustainable and responsible business, inclusive and sustainable development, carbon credit, green bank, policy-makers, SME, MNE, trade, investment

Examining the potential for cross-South Pacific trade: ASEAN and Latin America

This paper discusses the potential for cross-South Pacific trade between selected Southeast Asian and Latin American economies. The objective of this discussion is to identify obstacles for more intensive trade between the observed countries. Firstly, the paper reviews trends in trade flows and trade patterns between the selected economies, and by using several trade performance indicators it finds the level of trade still relatively low. It then discusses the possible reasons for this state of affairs. It focuses on a review of tariffs, trading costs and other possible impediments to trade. Paper also considers how trade relations among these countries could be improved. It provides a background into the features of the trade agreements that have been signed among the countries belonging to these two sub-regions in an attempt to identify if any of them could be used as a “driver” for future integration