— Edited by Nagesh Kumar

The 1990s have witnessed a strong trend in different parts of the world especially the developed countries to form regional trading blocs, such as EU and NAFTA. The formation of these trade blocs has led to substantial diversion of trade and investment away from the rest of the world economy affecting the growth process in other regions that are not part of these blocs.

The Asian countries on the other hand have faithfully pursued multilateralism in their trade and investment policy except for few subregional attempts such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) or the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA). However, there is now a growing recognition in Asia of the importance of regional economic integration for generating growth impulses from within, especially in the wake of the East Asian Crisis.

Against that backdrop, this book makes a case for an Asian Economic Community that would be broader in coverage than the current programs for economic cooperation in the region. It argues that the community is evolving in a phased manner with Japan, ASEAN, China, India and Korea (JACIK) providing the initial core group that can be expanded to cover other parts of Asia subsequently, as in Europe. The analysis presented in the book shows that regional economic integration could act as a new engine of growth and generate hundreds of billions of additional output and assist Asia regain its place in the world economy that it had until the eighteenth century. The book also examines the emerging patterns of regional integration in JACIK region and presents an analysis of the potential and prospects of cooperation in the areas of trade, money and finance, technology and investments.

This book will be useful to Asian policy-makers and scholars looking for a vision in making the 21st century an Asian century.