Direct Investment and Economic Integration in the Asia Pacific: The Case of Taiwanese Investment in Xiamen

Abstract

The Asia-Pacific region, and particularly its East Asian core, has achieved an impressive record of growth, export expansion and regional economic integration that now spans more than three decades and a wide variety of world economic environments. A key indicator of these achievements is the changing level of intra-regional foreign trade. This indicator is positive for the region as a whole over the period, although trends since 1980 are quite sensitive to the precise definition of the region employed. However, for the NICs (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore) and the ASEAN group (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philip-pines and Brunei) in isolation, intra-regional trade increased by approximately 25 per cent over the decade 1980–1990.