Apec: The Challenges of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation

Abstract

International trade figures prominently in the economic growth strategies of East and Southeast Asian countries. Despite the economic recession experienced across much of the world since the early 1990s, the pace of economic growth was sustained virtually unabated in the countries of East and Southeast Asia.During the entire decade of the 1980s the East and Southeast Asian economies grew more than twice as rapidly as the rest of the world economy. Along with this growth performance, international trade in the East and Southeast Asian region increased at about twice the rate of Europe and North America. Merchandise exports in East and Southeast Asia increased at an annual average rate of 10% per annum between 1965 and 1989. In 1990 and 1991 aggregate merchandise exports from Asia's Newly Industrializing Economies (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong) grew by 9.0% and 11.4%, while the four ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) developing countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) recorded average increases of 12.9% and 14.3%, respectively.Expanding merchandise exports were accompanied by surging capital inflows and rising investment rates, culminating in accelerated growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) along with a significant reduction in the incidence of poverty.