Research Paper 46, July 2012

Whilst the first steps towards Asian trade cooperation stated in 1970s, it was the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 that triggered Asian efforts at monetary and financial integration. This paper argues that the conditions for Asian monetary integration are not conducive but that efforts at monetary cooperation should proceed at three fronts – exchange rate cooperation, coordination of capital flows control, and strengthening of regional financial liquidity management as in the Chiang Mai Initiative and regional surveillance.

The 1 August issue of the South Bulletin: Reflections and Foresights focuses on the collapse of the WTO Mini-Ministerial Meeting in Geneva and the successfully concluded 15th Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran. 

The Editorial by Executive Director of the South Centre is on "Non-Aligned Movement and the Collapse of the Doha Round" while the Op-Ed piece is on "Population, Production and Price Dimensions of Food Security" by Jean Feyder, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the UN Mission in Geneva.

Analysis and commentaries appearing in the Bulletin, include those on An Old WTO for a New World?; World Bank Climate  Investment Funds: Corporocracy to Carbocracy; IP Rights in Standards Impede Competition; The ASEAN Charter: Where To, What Next?; and on ‘Agricultural Revolution’, Japan’s Rescue Package for Africa.