Infrastructures role in lowering Asia's trade costs: building for trade
Infrastructure is shown to be a cost-effective means of lowering trade costs and thereby promoting regional growth and integration. This report combines thematic and country studies, while breaking new ground in quantifying infrastructure's impact on Asia's trade costs. The contributors add to empirical estimates of Asia's trade costs and infrastructure's influence on those costs while also contributing to a better understanding of the region's logistics challenges. The report includes interesting case studies of rapid growth and congestion (in PRC), inland transportation challenges (India), port competition in an archipelago (Indonesia) and transportation modal switching as value-added rises (Malaysia) that are policy - and project -relevant in their own right. The analysis and policy implications in this report will be of interest to trade and infrastructure policy-makers and academics at graduate and higher levels involved in economic development or Asian studies, as well as the broader development community.