Regional economic integration has become a key force in international commercial policy in the 2000s. Europe has traditionally embraced regionalism; the United States became actively involved in preferential trading arrangements only in the 1980s. While Asia has been late in accepting formal regional economic integration accords, all Asian countries are now in the process of creating various free-trade areas and other forms of economic integration programs, and some are already in place. This volume analyzes the regionalism trend from an Asian perspective. It considers the lessons from, and the economic implications of, various economic integration programs in the OECD (mostly the EU but also NAFTA), as well as the proposals for closer economic integration in the region itself. Chapters deal with both real and financial integration issues.
