Infrastructure and Trade in Asia

Analysis of infrastructure’s role in facilitating international trade and consequently regional economic integration is still rudimentary. This original book fills that knowledge gap by exploring relevant concepts, measurement issues, aspects of the implementation of trade-related infrastructure facilities and their impacts on poverty, trade, investment and macroeconomic balances.

Continuing the series of books produced in association with the Asian Development Bank Institute, this study explores the virtuous cycle of infrastructure investment, trade expansion and economic growth in developing Asia. Issues relating infrastructure, both hard and soft, to trade facilitation and trade costs are defined and examined, and the role of infrastructure in regional cooperation to enhance intraregional trade is analysed. Empirical estimates of trade costs in Asia suggest there is significant room for infrastructure to lower those costs further. By approaching the infrastructure–trade nexus at the regional level through cooperative activities, this study shows it is possible to increase the range of policy options and risk management opportunities.

Infrastructure and Trade in Asia will be of interest to trade and infrastructure policymakers, academics at graduate and above levels involved in economic development and Asian studies as well as those in the development community interested in regional cooperation and integration.