Endnotes

¹Asia in the modern age includes the People’s Republic of China, India, Japan, and key Southeast Asian economies.

²Cross-border infrastructure is defined as any international infrastructure cooperation initiative between two or more countries to strengthen cross-border connectivity.

³East Asia includes 15 economies, including the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam); People’s Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Japan; the Republic of Korea; and Taipei,China. Emerging East Asia excludes Japan.

⁴The discussion on production networks draws on Carruthers, Bajpai, and Hummels 2003; Fujita and Hisa 2004; and Kawai 2005.

⁵For this reason, East Asian exporters have made broad-based gains in competitiveness in local markets against many major nonregional suppliers (ADB, 2003).

⁶In efficient multimodal transportation networks, goods move from one mode of transport to another seamlessly, without storage or human handling in between.

⁷A recent study (ADB, 2006b) indicates that regional cooperation in trade, transport, and customs transit in the Kyrgyz Republic would yield a potential cumulative gain for the period 2006–15 of $2.1 billion at 2002 prices.

⁸Actual transport costs and time are often much higher than the "ideal world" costs (UNDP, 2005). The "ideal world" condition is based on balanced transport flows, competitive markets for transport services, smooth border crossings, low transit fees, and no visa problems or unofficial payments.

⁹Canals and railroads in the United States opened up new areas promoting economic growth through regional specialization based on the comparative advantage of each region. Governments (national and subnational) played an active role during 1790–1840, funneling large amounts of foreign and domestic investments into infrastructure projects (Wallis, 2000). Europe saw a major expansion of its infrastructure network by way of railway links, telegraph lines, electricity and cables, gas and water works in the 19th century, followed by telephone lines and tramways at the turn of the 20th century. Japan spent considerable resources building infrastructure before World War II, but it was its efforts after the war, when it allocated 6–8 percent of GDP to infrastructure development, that set an example for other East Asian economies. Hong Kong, China; the Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Singapore; and Taipei,China followed this lead with similar investment levels (Mody, 1997).

¹⁰Regionalism here includes formal economic cooperation and integration arrangements covering infrastructure, trade, investment, finance, and various types of regional public goods (see Kawai, 2007).

¹¹The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) comprises Cambodia, the PRC, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

¹²International arbitration offers a solution to this problem, but recourse to this option must be agreed on and adhered to a priori.

¹³In the GMS program, cross-border infrastructure was found to be a crucial building block in developing cultural capital to reap the so-called "peace dividend," expand markets, and exploit economic opportunities

¹⁴For example, within GMS a broad hierarchy of institutional arrangements exists to prepare subregional strategies. There are working groups for energy and transport at ministerial levels, supported by a number of other institutional arrangements for coordinating work at technical level.

¹⁵In the northern economic corridor, for example, the benefits would accrue largely to PRC and Thailand, while Lao PDR would have to pay large economic and social costs. It was therefore very important to ensure that the interests of pure transit countries—such as Lao PDR—were ensured when structuring the project finance.

¹⁶In NT2, for example, compensation for environmental and social impacts was built into the design of the project and became part of the contracting arrangements.

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Comment(s)

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1. Cristela Goce Dakila
   (posted 08 October 2007 / 04:59:52 PM)
   
   Overall, the focus of the paper , which is cross-border infrastructure for Asian development is very timely, relevant and far-reaching in terms of perspective.
   
   The paper is rich with valuable insights which are useful for policy planners and implementors. It also provides academic researchers with a multidisciplinary framework useful in addressing the urgent concern for Asian regional cooperation.
   
   Among the infrastructure types mentioned,transport infrastructure investment, I think, is the most vital in establishing inter-country connectivity via trade in goods and services and investments.
   
   I wish to suggest the usage of a spatial computable general equilibrium model as an analytical tool to examine the impact of cross-border infrastructure investment on both producers(firms) and consumers (HHs) and other stakeholders in a specific Asian sub-region.