ABSTRACT
Economic emergence of the world’s two most populous countries is transforming the economic landscape of East and South Asia and contributing to fundamental shifts in global economic relations. While Asia’s traditional trade with the Western OECD continues to expand and intensify, intra-Asian trade is accelerating as the most dynamic economies provide growth leverage to their neighbors. This trend is being facilitated by official efforts to liberalize trade and private agency that propagates growth linkages over regional supply networks. Intensified Asian regional integration has the potential to raise incomes among a majority of the world’s poor, yet policy makers lack visibility about how trade patterns and domestic adjustments will evolve in the medium and long term.
