Asia is becoming more integrated than ever before and so requires increased monitoring. While integration has increased overall, the movement of goods, services, and people across borders has grown unevenly across sectors and subregions. Policy makers need to be guided through the complex process to benefit from a smooth and successful integration.

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Read the policy brief

https://www.adb.org/publications/monitoring-regional-economic-integration-asia

About the authors

Aladdin D. Rillo was senior economist at the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) in Tokyo at the time this policy brief was written.

Valdimir dela Cruz was an associate at ADBI at the time this policy brief was written.

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As the economies of these countries have diversified, their exports have increased to almost three times what they were 2 decades ago. But the gains have been intermittent—and countries need to do more to access Asian markets to boost export revenues further.

Businesses need to be able to ship more to export markets. Instead of maintaining trade barriers, governments should support them and help link them to buyers and distributors.

Those are some of the hurdles discussed in the policy brief by Wawan Juswanto and Zulfiqar Ali of the Asian Development Bank Institute.

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Read the policy brief

https://www.adb.org/publications/economic-growth-and-sustainable-development-pacific-island-countries

About the authors

Wawan Juswanto is special advisor to the dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI).

Zulfiqar Ali was a research associate at ADBI at the time this policy brief was written.

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The gap between the rich and the poor in Viet Nam has narrowed, thanks to increased imports from the People’s Republic of China. Data collected from 2002 to 2014 show that lower-income groups benefited more than higher-income ones. Numerous studies show that international trade can fuel economic growth and that open economies are generally more prosperous than more protectionist ones. Apart from creating jobs, freer trade can raise living standards and bring down the prices of goods and services.

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https://bit.ly/2AoRAvy

Read the working paper

https://www.adb.org/publications/impact-import-competition-prc-income-inequality-household-welfare-viet-nam

About the authors

Matthias Helble was senior economist and ADBI Research Department co-chair at the time the study was published.

Trang T. Le is an assistant professor at the Banking Academy in Viet Nam.

Trinh Q. Long is a project consultant at ADBI.

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Developing countries in Asia can leapfrog old fossil-fuel energy systems and promote the use of environment-friendly solar-power systems as their growing economies need more and more energy.

By 2050, 85% of the world’s estimated 9.7 billion people will live in emerging countries, and about 70% will live in cities, according to a United Nations report. Growing populations will lead to soaring energy demands in the mega-cities that will continue to sprawl.

Small-scale solar systems would be better for developing countries than big solar farms since they have less of an environmental impact and are more suited to the dense urban environments where the power is needed.

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Read the working paper

https://www.adb.org/publications/financing-solar-photovoltaic-transitions-utility-residential-market-adoption

About the authors

Ranaporn Tantiwechwuttikul is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences of the University of Tokyo.

Masaru Yarime is an associate professor at the School of Energy and Environment of the City University of Hong Kong.

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Blockchain technology may be used to finance local renewable-energy projects. The technology, which basically acts as an electronic ledger, allows transactions to be carried out between parties without interference by third parties like banks. It creates trust as it assures investors that all recorded transactions are secure because the data are stored in multiple blocks and therefore difficult to manipulate.

Another way the combined approach can build trust is by ensuring that projects are evaluated by a third-party assessor, who then stores the findings in a project assessment database grounded on blockchain technology. The stored data cannot be changed.

Economist Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary of Waseda University in Tokyo, ADBI Dean Naoyuki Yoshino, and economics graduate student Tim Schlober of the University of Bonn in Germany and Keio University in Tokyo explain the benefits of the financing scheme.

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Read the blog post

https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2018/07/trust-by-design-investment-a-novel-blockchain-based-approach-to-ease-green-energy-investments/

About the authors

Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary is an economist of Waseda University in Tokyo.

Naoyuki Yoshino is dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute.

Tim Schlober is an economics graduate student of the University of Bonn in Germany and Keio University in Tokyo.

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If you have a good story, you can change the world. If your story makes people laugh, you have an even better chance at success.

That’s the message of Jack Sim, who decided after a thriving business career to take on the issue of global sanitation. Expanding the use of toilets would help stop diseases spread by people defecating in the open. More toilets would also lead to more women going to school, since a lack of toilets is often a reason that girls don’t attend school.

In 2001, Sim began building the World Toilet Organization to promote sanitation by expanding the use of toilets. The United Nations has since recognized an annual World Toilet Day and through its World Toilet Summit and other initiatives, Sim’s organization continues to spread the word.

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Watch the whole presentation

https://bit.ly/2C6if1m

About the speaker

Jack Sim is the founder of the Restroom Association of Singapore, the World Toilet Organization, the World Toilet Day initiative, and Bottom of the Pyramid Hub.

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Asia and the Pacific need to ensure not only that more people have access to financial products and services but also that the poor can wield them to build wealth.

While the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC broadly recognizes that financial inclusion is key to fighting poverty and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, more needs to be done to improve financial inclusion.

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https://bit.ly/2Oj0rHR

About the speakers

Loi M. Bakani is governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea.

Nobuhide Hayashi is Mizuho Bank chair and a member of Japan’s APEC Business Advisory Council.

Michelle Curry is CEO of the Foundation for Development Cooperation, Australia.

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The Republic of Korea could improve its citizens’ overall well-being by tackling inequality in the workforce that has left women falling behind their male counterparts.

A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development points out that on many measures the country remains well behind other OECD countries when it comes to the treatment of women in the workforce. Randall Jones, head of the Japan and Korea desk at the OECD, spoke on the issue at the Asian Development Bank Institute.

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About the speaker

Randall Jones is head of the Japan and Korea desk of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

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To be or not to be?

That is the question confronting Malaysia’s state-linked companies. Should the government sell its stake in them as they are embroiled in controversy after controversy?

The issue becomes starker because the country’s government-linked firms account for about half the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index, and they constitute 7 out of the top-10 listed firms in 2018.

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https://bit.ly/2NiFXJM

Read the blog post

https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2018/07/monsters-in-the-house-what-to-do-about-malaysias-government-linked-companies/

About the author

Jayant Menon is a lead economist at the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department of the Asian Development Bank, Manila.

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The fast growth of a high-speed rail network in the People’s Republic of China has widened market access and boosted incomes. Expanding access to high-speed rail even further would help solve some of the country’s toughest problems.

Extending the network and improving access to it would benefit poorer parts of the country. The high-speed rail system has already helped offset some of the sharp divisions between rich and poor in China, a situation that often equates to an urban-rural divide.

High-speed rail expansion has also taken some of the pressure off cities that are struggling with overpopulation and pollution, by making it easier for those cities to spread to less congested areas and for other centers to grow.

Those are some of the conclusions of research done for the Asian Development Bank Institute that looked at the effects of the high-speed rail network on 110 cities in China.

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Read the working paper

https://bit.ly/2V8Hb27

About the authors

Wei Zou is a professor and director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Wuhan University in the People’s Republic of China.

Liangheng Chen and Junke Xiong are associate researchers at the institute.

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