By Jomo K.S.* After nearly three years of unprecedented popularity at home, Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad has seen his reputation take a beating in the business community. This is because of rhetoric that in the past...
Read Moreby Kamal Malhotra* The 1997 World Bank/ IMF Annual Meetings in Hong Kong were carefully planned well in advance to be a celebration of both first (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) and second generation( Thailand,...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* The last time the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was active in Thailand was in the mid-1980’s, when the country was mired in a recession caused by the conjunction of the rising price of oil, plunging...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* Even experienced observers were surprised by the Big Bang that marked the restructuring of Thailand’s economy under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In return for an IMF bail-out,...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* The Thai government’s closing of 42 finance companies, in addition to the 16 it shut down in June, to convince the International Monetary Fund that it is finally serious about coming to grips with the...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* Does the currency crisis in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines spell the end of the Southeast Asian model of development? In contrast to the path followed by the “newly industrialising...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* The peso has stabilized. The economy is back on course. The trade deficit is under control, and the projected GDP growth rate of 7 per cent will be achieved. People in the Philippines are today being bombarded...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* Like the European Union, Asean faces the choice of either “enlarging” or “deepening.” And the choice it makes will have major consequences on the prospects of two of its key projects, the...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* Gloom is the dominant mood in Japan these days. The nation’s spirit appears to be sinking along with its currency, which recently dropped to as low as 120 to the dollar from a high of less than 80 yen less...
Read Moreby Walden Bello* GENEVA–Thailand and other Asian countries are central actors in a dispute that is shaping up as a landmark battle in the volatile area of trade and the environment: the so-called shrimp-turtle controversy....
Read Moreby Nicola Bullard* Apart from the brouhaha of the annual leaders’ summit one of the year’s best photo opportunities APEC rarely gets a mention in the economic pages, let alone the headlines. But although APEC may be...
Read Moreby Ian Fry* The purpose of this paper is to look at current international trade trends, then fit these within the context of APEC, and finally suggest actions for government and NGOs to take in an effort to stem the growth in...
Read Moreby Jorge Emmanuel* As stricter environmental laws and occupational safety standards made disposal of toxic and hazardous waste expensive in rich industrialised nations, waste generators and brokers have made developing countries...
Read Moreby Sara Larrain* Chile in the global trade game. These days Chile is called the Latin American tiger because the level of its high economic growth during the past decade. Macro-economic GDP figures show that the country’s...
Read Moreby Alejandro Villamar* (Most of this paper is based in research by RMALC, particularly by Bertha Lujan, Alberto Arroyo, Andres Peñaloza, Mario Monrroy and Alejandro Villamar) In 1991 the Mexican government started, without any...
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