GMS Contents

The Fourth Meeting of the Trade Facilitation Working Group (TFWG-4) was held on 11-12 November 2004 in Kunming, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China. The Meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Sun Yuanjiang, Director, Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, People's Republic of China; and Mr. Robert Boumphrey Director, and Ms. Lingling Ding, Trade Economist, Governance, Finance and Trade Division, Mekong Department (MKGF), alternating for ADB.

This publication outlines the GMS Economic Cooperation Program (GMS Program) which was initiated in 1992 with the support of ADB. It aims to promote economic cooperation among Cambodia, People's Republic of China (PRC), Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam.
The GMS Program covers nine priority sectors: transportation, telecommunications, energy, environment, human resource development, trade, investment, tourism, and agriculture.

The fledgling Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Journal for Development Studies, published under the auspices of the Phnom Penh Plan (PPP) for Development Management, moves a step ahead with the second issue. In what might be considered as "ascending steps," GMS scholarship is moving forward, slowly but surely. The PPP's commitment is to ensure that we continue to make strides towards our goal of bridging the gap between research and capacity building and to propagate the gospel of balanced socioeconomic development in the GMS.

The Special Meeting of the Trade Facilitation Working Group (TWFG) was held at ADB Headquarters, Manila, Philippines on 25-26 April 2005. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Robert Boumphrey, Director of the Governance, Finance and Trade Division of ADB's Mekong Department. Seventeen officials from the commerce, trade, customs, immigration and quarantine agencies of the six GMS countries as well as ADB staff participated in the Meeting.

Collaborative infrastructure projects are undertaken in the Greater Mekong Subregion because, in theory, they help to promote greater trade and investment flows among neighboring countries.

The Fifth Meeting of the Trade Facilitation Working Group (TFWG-5) was held on 16-17 May 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand. The Meeting was chaired by the Ms. Pranee Siriphand, Director of the Bureau of Border Trade and Special Initiative, Department of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce, Thailand for sessions I-IV and Mr. Sun Yuanjiang Director, Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, People's Republic of China (PRC) for sessions V-VII. Mr.

In this issue of the Journal of Greater Mekong Subregion Development Studies, we feature five articles that concern some of the more pressing issues of cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) - trade facilitation and trade logistics, the trade impact of cross-border transport infrastructure, tourism corridor development, and biofuels and rural renewable energy. The diversity of the topics tackled in this volume reflects the multifaceted challenges of regional cooperation.

This training material aims to strengthen officials' and experts' understanding of the trade barriers that affect trade in goods and the economic determinants of such trade; proposals made in different forums to reform border policies affecting trade in goods and the analysis of those proposals, with a particular focus on the strategic questions raised by regional trade agreements; and particular challenges facing trade policy makers in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

Against the backdrop of growing momentum for regional cooperation and integration (RCI) in Asia, this paper examines the link between regional roads and Asian Development Bank (ADB) support between 1966 and 2008.

The novel methodology used in this paper includes an Asia-wide definition of regional roads that fall on the Asian Highway (AH) network. The AH network is a system of about 140,000 kilometers (km) of standardized roads crisscrossing many Asian countries and with linkages to Europe.