Towards an Asian Economic Area By V. R. Panchamukhi and Rehman Sobhan (Eds.), 1995

The RIS and the South Centre, Geneva, took the initiative of organising an international conference on "Challenges to the South in the Nineties with special reference to the Asian Region." The conference addressed itself to the varied issues ranging from the choice of the development paradigm and development strategies, resource mobilisation, external debt management, food security, technology-creation and technology-transfer and social aspects of development. As a result of an intensive debate on these diverse issues of the process of development, the conference threw up an agenda for the South, especially for the countries of the Asian region. The consensus on the agenda that emerged in the conference underscored a vision that the Asian countries should evolve an Asian Economic Area, which would foster closer economic integration among themselves for their mutual benefit.