Publication Categories
Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area
In the BIMP-EAGA context, the traditional growth area model for generating trade and investment has relevance in terms of differences in skill and unskilled labor endowments and production technologies. However, it has less relevance in terms of natural resource endowments than in other areas of regional cooperation since the sub-regions share similar natural resources and therefore tend to produce similar types of goods. The report presents a trade and investment model for the EAGA that not only determines the growth potential of intra-regional trade and investment resulting from differences in factor endowments, but also builds on the growing world-wide trend towards the globalization of production to reduce production costs by exploiting economies of scale and expanding extra-regional trade. The focus of such a regional bloc provides an opportunity to obtain economies of scale in production by export-oriented industries. Asian Development Bank (ADB). (126 pages).