Foreign Trade Growth, Prerequisite for Economic Development of Emerging Asia

To boost their growth prospects through international trade, countries in developing Asia need to pursue different strategies depending on their circumstances. For economies in East Asia and Southeast Asia, the key challenge is for production and trade networks to undertake the adjustments necessary to accommodate increased domestic consumption and expand the volume and scope of intraregional trade. In particular, these economies may need to shift from vertical specialization and network trade to product-based horizontal specialization and intraregional trade in final goods. For non-Indian South Asia, the priority is to continue down the track of further economic integration with the sub-region’s dominant economy; for the sub-region as a whole, to reduce excessively high trade costs and integrate more closely with the rest of Asia. Trade facilitation and regional integration are critical to speed up South Asia’s participation in regional production networks. In this endeavor, India stands out as a huge market for exports from neighboring countries and as a sub-regional springboard for pan-Asian integration.