This series features the scholarly works under the Phnom Penh Plan for Development Management, a region-wide capacity building program of the Asian Development Bank that supports knowledge products and services.

The establishment of cross-border economic zones in the border areas of the People's Republic of China and its neighboring countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion has recently emerged as a strategy for further promoting trade and investments in the subregion. Unlike a border economic zone (BEZ), which is confined within the national territory, a CBEZ is an economic zone traversing a transnational area and requiring a unified set of policies and incentives in such areas as finance, taxation, investment, trade, and customs regulation.

Using the case study of Viet Nam to draw implications for GMS cooperation, this paper investigates how users and providers of financial services in the border-gate areas see financial services as a factor of cross-border trade facilitation. It also examines how users and providers of financial services perceive the different dimensions of financial service accessibility and how accessibility affects customers' decisions to use financial services in the border-gate areas.

Border-gate economic zones (BEZs) are symbols of the increased cross-border exchange and the development initiative of the border areas in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Over the past decade, BEZs have been able to attract a great number of women workers seeking new job opportunities.

This paper presents the variations and implications of contract farming arrangements in three case studies - cabbage, maize, and sugarcane - in the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

This is the joint statement from the 17th GMS Ministerial Conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in August 2011.

This is the summary of discussions at the 10th Meeting of the Regional Power Trade Coordination Committee (RPTCC-10) in Siem Reap, Cambodia on 25 to 27 May 2011.

The Fifteenth Meeting of the Subregional Transport Forum (STF-15) was held in Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), on 14–15 September 2011. The Forum was jointly organized by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT), Lao PDR and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The leaders of the six countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion issued a joint declaration, entitled "Beyond 2012: Towards a New Decade of GMS Strategic Development Partnership," at the 4th GMS Summit of Leaders in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar on 19–20 December 2011.