DEVELOPMENT-ASIA: Economic Growth Comes in Threes or More (1) An Inter Press Service Feature
MANILA, Nov 08 (IPS) - Experts can exchange ambitious talk about all kinds of arrangements for economic cooperation in the Asia- Pacific, but parts of Asia are quietly going ahead and building growth triangles that may well reshape the region's economic landscape.
A proposal for the 18 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to transform themselves into the world's largest free trade area is by far the most far-reaching scheme for the region, which accounts for half of global output.
Freer trade is expected to be endorsed at the Nov. 15 APEC Leaders' meeting in Indonesia, though varied views remain on what the timetable ought to be.
In sharp contrast to this large-scale approach, some Asian countries are linking together to pursue a less ambitious type of cooperation and forming smaller, at times informal, zones of cooperation to bring about faster growth.
Asia's diverse economic and political systems, cultures and incomes are not readily conducive to forming European Union or North American Free Trade Area-type arrangements.
But growth triangles -- transnational zones covering parts of three or more proximate countries with economic complementarities -- are the region's shortcut to creating more integrated economies.
As regional tensions wane in the post-Cold War years, growth hubs are being formed because they involve low political risk and potentially big gains, can be put up, expanded or scrapped easily and are less likely to be perceived as a hostile move.
"The growth triangle is an appropriate form of regional cooperation for many Asian countries," Asian Development Bank (AsDB) economists Min Tang and Myo Thant said in a 1994 study.
They say the growth triangle appears to be "a particularly Asian solution to the operational problems of regional economic cooperation among countries at different stages of economic development, and in many cases, even with different social and economic systems".
There are two such growth areas functioning today: one in southern China and another involving Singapore, the Malaysian state of Johor and the Indonesia's Riau province (SIJORI).
The Southern China triangle consisting of Hong Kong, Taipei and China's Guangdong and Fujian provinces is the most established and most successful one.
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