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An overview of goods and services trade patterns in Asia and the Pacific : a 2022 update
Get PDF- The trade in goods in the Asia-Pacific region is still concentrated in China, Japan, Hong Kong (China), and the Republic of Korea. Especially China continues to be the largest trading economy contributing one-third of all imports and exports in the region in 2021. India and the Russian Federation are catching up and increasing their trade shares.
- While 60.8% of trade takes place within the region, trade with China accounts for almost half of that trade. Outside Asia-Pacific, the largest trading partners were the European Union (15.7%) and the United States (11.5%).
- The major exports were capital goods such as machinery and equipment, while the exports to the European Union and the United States were primarily consumer goods. Although deep integration through regional value chains exists, the European Union and the United States are still largely responsible for the final demand.
- Services trade is more concentrated than the goods trade and dominated by the top 10 largest economies of the region, which make up 90% of services trade in the region.
- The services trade in the Asia-Pacific region was hit severely by the COVID-19 pandemic but recovered in 2021. This growth is spearheaded by transport services which increased by 48.6% and 40.1% for exports and imports, respectively. Conversely, the sectoral share of the travel industry continued to decline and has not recovered fully.
- Services trade restrictiveness was higher in the Asia-Pacific region than in the rest of the world. The difference was most significant in the rail freight transportation, accounting, and telecom sectors
Airship technology for air connectivity and humanitarian aid in the Caribbean and the Pacific
Get PDFThis technical note has been prepared as part of the activities of the UNDA project “Transport and trade connectivity in the age of pandemics: Contactless, seamless and collaborative UN solutions”. It was jointly prepared by the ESCAP Transport Division, in cooperation with the ECLAC International Trade and Integration Division, Infrastructure Services Unit.The Airship transport alternative, in its diverse engineering variants, has the potential to be a game-changing technology with significant development in recent years. It offers the technical capabilities to make a broad contribution to the optimization of mobility and logistics networks in isolated communities and territories, especially but not only in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). This is particularly important in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as in the event of a disaster, different aid agencies are deployed with support in the distribution and logistics of perishable and essential cargo, equipment, and assistance personnel. This innovative mode should be incorporated into the transport matrix (both nationally and regionally), for the latter to move towards more efficient, sustainable, and resilient networks.
This report discusses the use of airship in the context of transport connectivity in SIDS and their vulnerability to disasters and associated challenges. The report presents the state of the airship´s technology, its flexibility, advantages, and study cases. It highlights a series of competitive advantages of airships for improving connectivity in SIDS and for addressing humanitarian, sanitary and environmental challenges across the local, regional, and global scales, as a resilient and sustainable logistics solution in synchro-modality with other modes of transport.
The document has been prepared as part of the activities of the UNDA project “Transport and trade connectivity in the age of pandemics: Contactless, seamless and collaborative UN solutions”. It was jointly prepared by the ESCAP Transport Division, in cooperation with the ECLAC International Trade and Integration Division, Infrastructure Services Unit.</p
Protecting our planet through regional cooperation and solidarity in Asia and the Pacific
Get PDFAsia and the Pacific is a dynamic region and has made significant progress to improve the health and well-being of its population by lifting billions of people out of poverty.
However, economic growth has been based on unsustainable models of development, leading to the region accounting for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions and two-thirds of premature death, due to air pollution, and causing a quarter of endemic species in the region to face high risk of extinction. If business continues as usual, the ongoing deterioration of our environment will exacerbate risks and vulnerabilities, potentially causing irreversible environmental change.
Meanwhile, it is encouraging to have the majority of Asian and Pacific countries already announcing goals to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century, and many countries have developed detailed plans and strategies. Central to a carbon-neutral society is to phase out the use of fossil fuels and to fully utilize the potential of nature-based solutions to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. This will lead to significant co-benefits to climate action safeguarding ecosystems and biodiversity, tackling the root cause of air pollution and making cities more liveable and sustainable. The transition is a race against time, considering the trend of global temperature rise and the region’s high vulnerability to climate change. To win in this race, Asia and the Pacific needs to strengthen regional cooperation and solidarity based on a shared vision. In line with national goals and aspiration for carbon neutrality, regional cooperation could support the implementation of long-term, low-emission development strategies through sharing knowledge and technologies, and facilitating partnership programmes.
Taking the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and other zoonotic diseases, the region needs to enhance joint efforts to protect and safeguard the health of ecosystems, including the marine ecosystem, with the “One-Health” approach, managing relations between the health of humans and animals and the functions of ecosystems. Regional cooperation needs to include the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions, and consider the interlinkage of the marine ecosystem and climate change
Report, expert group meeting : psychosocial support services, 18th September 2020, Hanoi
Get PDFWithin the SME sector in Viet Nam, it is estimated that women-owned SMEs comprise 21% of formal enterprises while facing numerous barriers, including limited access to finance and technology, low levels of financial and digital literacy, and discriminatory sociocultural norms. Despite having made considerable advances as entrepreneurs, they continue to face social prejudices and other social and economic barriers. Given that women are the primary caregivers, they face the additional pressure of care responsibility for ageing population, children as well as unwell family members, thus finding it hard to maintain the balance between family and business life.
Under the project “Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship (CWE): Creating a Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem," an expert group meeting (EGM) on “Psychosocial Support Services” was conducted in Hanoi on September 18, 2020, wherein 20 representatives from over ten expert agencies were invited to present perspectives on psychosocial aspects in advancing women’s entrepreneurship in Vietnam. The EGM was co-chaired by Ms. Bui Thu Thuy, Deputy Director General-AED and Ms. Trinh Thi Huong, Director of General and Policy Department-AED- CWE Project Manager, with virtual participation of ESCAP representative Ms.Sudha Gooty, CWE Programme Manager, ESCAP.</p
Harnessing Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies for climate change mitigation in the Asia-Pacific region
Get PDFAs climate change impacts are getting more intense, all nations around the world are eagerly ramping up joint efforts to ensure the planet's sustainability. Many initiatives are being undertaken with the hope to accomplish the target of net-zero emissions as soon as possible. However, over the past two years the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted global socio-economic conditions and aggravated the challenges being faced by countries. To address these social, economic and environmental issues and “build back better”, the development of advanced tools such as the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies would be crucial, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper discusses the opportunities, challenges, innovations and strategies to enhance climate change mitigation with 4IR technologies from sectoral perspectives and provides policy recommendations based on the analysis
Climate champions’ extended compendium of climate related initiatives : regional project list for Asia and the Pacific
No full textAhead of COP-27, UN ESCAP, together with other Regional Commissions, partners with the incoming Egyptian Presidency of COP27 and the UN High-Level Champions for Climate Action to organize a series of five regional forums on facilitating investment flows into climate-related initiatives. The Asia-Pacific Climate Finance Forum, as part of the global initiative, identifies investment opportunities that exist around the region and connects them with financiers.
The Regional List of Projects in Asia and the Pacific showcases a compendium of these opportunities, many of which were identified at the Forum. To be put in touch with the relevant project owner(s), please reach out to the High Level Champions Finance Team at [email protected] and ESCAP at [email protected].</p
2022 : Leaving no one behind : Maldives country brief
No full textLeaving No One Behind (LNOB) tool helps discover how different circumstances interact to create unequal access to basic opportunities in Asia and the Pacific. The LNOB country brief for Maldives provides insights into which groups are further ahead and further behind in various SDG indicators and where the biggest gaps are found in terms of access to opportunities or prevalence of barriers between the furthest behind and the furthest ahead groups in Maldives. </p
Steps to inclusive social protection systems
Get PDFGovernments have increasingly recognized social protection as a key policy instrument to build a more productive, protected and healthy population in Asia and the Pacific. In 2020, ESCAP member States endorsed the regional ESCAP Action Plan to Strengthen Regional Cooperation on Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP Action Plan), which serves as a shared vision, strategy and platform for promoting partnership and peer learning and identifying needs for capacity development. At the national level, the ESCAP Action Plan calls on countries to establish an intermediate target of social protection coverage by 2025, and then measure progress towards achieving universal coverage by 2030. To achieve this objective, the ESCAP Action Plan lays out 12 measures to be taken at the national level.
Social protection has been identified as an enabler for implementing the 2030 Agenda. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and deliver on the commitments contained therein, most countries in the region need to step up their efforts to build sustainable and reliable social protection systems. For this purpose, the ESCAP Action Plan and its national actions will be helpful for countries in furthering their inclusive social protection agenda.
To support member States in the implementation of this first ever regional Action Plan, ESCAP has been mandated to develop a regional platform to facilitate peer learning and enhance the knowledge and awareness of member States to implement the ESCAP Action Plan.
The Steps to Inclusive Social Protection Systems sets out 12 milestones for developing an integrated and sustainable social protection system, aligned with the ESCAP Action Plan,1 that has the buy-in of key actors, guarantees the right to social protection for all, addresses gaps in current social protection systems, identifies solutions to support sustainable financing, removes inefficiencies and fragmentation in delivery and administration, and responds to shocks more efficiently and effectively.</p
