Trade and Specialization in the Asian Area

This paper analyses the evolution of the commercial relations of the following Asian countries: Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Our objectives will be:(1)to show how this area, which appears to be the most dynamic in the economic growth field as well as in the international trade sphere, constitutes a coherent group of integrating countries in which Japan remains the commercial and financial centre of gravity;(2)to show how this economic region withdraws into itself in its trade relations. (This closing-in became accentuated at the beginning of the 1990s for countries like Japan, which realized not only saw a relative decline in their foreign trade with the United States but also realized that their strength lay in domestic growth.