A Pacific free trade area

Great Britain's desire to join the Common Market has given a fresh impetus to the plans of a Pacific-Asiatic free trade area. Members of PAFTA are to be Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. By means of an economic integration of these nations, particularly Japan is interested in stabilising its position in the world economy and not to stand completely outside regional unions. Already last year, INTERECONOMICS published a critical comment to the PAFTA plans written by the Australian professor, H. W. Arndt. In view of the manifold problems and the economic disadvantages to be anticipated, he declared against an Australian participation in this project. In the following article, Professor Kojima, the initiator of the Pacific integration plans, takes a different point of view

Chances for a pacific free trade area

The establishment of the EEC was a major event of the 1960s. It has had a significant impact on international trade and investment and has wrought a profound change in the world balance of economic power. The emergence of the enlarged EEC and the implementation of a Pacific Free Trade Area (PAFTA) could have a more profound influence in shaping the world of the 1970s