Scientific Journal SPATIAL ECONOMICS - Configuration of Free Trade Zones in the Asian-Pacific Region: Comparison of Integration Potentials

In the section	Articles
Title of the article	Configuration of Free Trade Zones in the Asian-Pacific Region: Comparison of Integration Potentials
Pages	84-106
Author	Mikhail Vladimirovich Tomilov Post-graduate, Junior Research Fellow Economic Research Institute FEB RAS 153, Tihookeanskaya Street, Khabarovsk, Russia, 680042 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ORCID: 0000-0002-5048-984X
Abstract	The article describes the potential free trade zones in Asia-Pacific: Trans-Pacific Partnership, Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership, Free Trade Zone of Asia-Pacific. Literary sources used by the researchers allowed concluding that the efficiency of integration groups depends on participants’ composition and the level of their trade and economical development. The more heterogeneous trade union participants, the less effective its development. In this article economic proximity and trade interactions intensity are the main factors for choosing integration groups participants. The research goal is to assess the integration potential of mentioned free trade zones in Asia-Pacific. In order to achieve this goal the calculation of participating countries economic proximity and their trade interactions intensity is made by means of econometric and mathematical methods. As a result, Trans-Pacific Partnership which has already been cancelled because of Washington’s withdrawal turned out to be a free trade zone with the biggest integration potential. The results demonstrate the significant gap between the rest of the integration groups and the leader. It is likely to be explained either by incomplete level of integration cooperation for creating sufficient integration group providing positive trade and economical effects or by the absence of such forms of integration cooperation in Asia-Pacific, which let countries receive abovementioned effects. In addition the hypothetical zone of countries with the highest potential integration effects is identified within the premises considered in the article. It consists of 16 countries and demonstrates the highest level of economical proximity
Code	33.339
JEL	F02, F15, F53
DOI	10.14530/se.2019.1.084-106
Keywords	integration potential ♦ economic integration ♦ Asia-Pacific ♦ free trade zone ♦ regional trade ♦ Trans-Pacific Partnership ♦ Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership ♦ Free Trade Zone of Asia-Pacific
Download	SE.2019.1.084-106.Tomilov.pdf
For citation	Tomilov M.V. Configuration of Free Trade Zones in the Asian-Pacific Region: Comparison of Integration Potentials. Prostranstvennaya Ekonomika = Spatial Economics, 2019, vol. 15. no. 1, pp. 84–106. DOI: 10.14530/se.2019.1.084-106. (In Russian).
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Financing	The article was written with the financial support from the Ministry of Education of Khabarovsk Krai (agreement No. 3612018Д from July 6, 2018, on carrying out scientific research in humanitarian and social sciences in 2018)