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Mercosur-South Korea: The feasibility of a Free Trade Agreement |
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Friday, 19 February 2010 |
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by Rita Barbieri & Natalia Pedrozo [ABSTRACT] Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), created in 1991, is the most important regional integration initiative in Latin America in the post-bipolar order, among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. This group represents a potential market with more than 200 million inhabitants and it is considered to be among the four main economic regions of the world. Another major economic actor to be considered in this paper is the Republic of Korea. This country has achieved an impressive economic growth which places it as the 11th largest economy in the world, according to information provided by the World Bank. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 19 February 2010 )
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Competition among China, Japan and Korea to woo ASEAN |
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Wednesday, 03 June 2009 |
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by Kim Jae Cheol* The upcoming Korea-ASEAN summit from June 1 to 2 in Jeju represents Korea’s belated effort to be a major player in East Asia by strengthening its relations with ASEAN – an organization consisting of the 10 countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. While this effort surely embodies a refreshing break with the recent past, when the focal point of its foreign policy was on the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia, Korea will face severe competition from China and Japan that have raced against each other to woo the ASEAN countries to shore up their influence in the region. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 June 2009 )
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Economic integration in Northeast Asia – preconditions and possible trajectories |
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Tuesday, 29 July 2008 |
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by Bernhard Seliger* Hanns Seidel Foundation in Seoul, Korea When in November 2001, the leaders of the Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian states met for the ‘ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) plus three (China, Japan and Korea)’, President Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea proposed the exploration for an East Asian Free Trade Area (EAFTA) and thereby opened a new chapter of East Asian integration. The special Northeast Asian perspective on regional co-operation became clear by the simultaneous decision to hold annual meetings of finance and trade ministers of China, Japan and Korea. At the same time, bilateral agreements like a free trade area between Japan and Singapore, the tentative large free trade area between ASEAN and China and the work-in-progress on a Korean-Japanese Free Trade Area show the devotion and sometimes even obsession of current policy-making with reaching regional trade agreements. Regional integration, it seems, is finally on the Northeast Asian agenda. In this paper the preconditions and perspectives of economic integration in Northeast Asia will be explored. Since economic integration is in various ways linked to political factors, the second section discusses the geo-political situation of Northeast Asia today. The third section deals with the economic perspectives of different forms of trade integration, followed by an analysis of various attempts for greater macro-economic and financial co-operation and a short conclusion. |
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The optimum size of East Asian economic integration and the role of Korea |
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Tuesday, 29 July 2008 |
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Economic integration in East Asia gained new momentum with the summit meeting of Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, when the “ASEAN plus three (China, Japan, Korea)” states met, together with India, New Zealand and Australia and decided to form a new economic integration area. However, the size of the new integration area has been a source of dispute: the participation of India meant that not only Northeast- and Southeast Asia, but also the economically and geographically most important country of South Asia is included. The inclusion of New Zealand and Australia meant that the original idea of an “Asians only”-club was given up. And the observer status for Russia, which is interested in full membership in the new integration area, means that the danger of overstretching like in the case of APEC looms for the new integration area. At the same time, bilateral integration through Free Trade Agreements flourishes in the region. Due to their frequent exceptions these FTA are barely to be integrated in a larger integration area (“spaghetti bowl effect”). At the same time, mistrust of Japan by its neighbours is an obstacle for the full integration of the (still) most important economy of the region. For the region, but in particular for the Republic of Korea (South Korea), the question remains how economic integration can strike a balance between the large and small states in the region. Given an appropriate integration area, South Korea can fully exert its role as a catalyst of integration. In this case, even Korea’s gaoal of national unification can benefit from international economic integration. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 July 2008 )
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ASEAN plus three (China, Japan, Korea) – towards an economic union in East Asia? |
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Friday, 31 August 2007 |
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edited by Karl-Peter Schönfisch and Bernhard Seliger Hanns Seidel Stiftung Seoul - Singapore Download the whole publication here (PDF format, 1.43 MB)
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 September 2007 )
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