East Asia's Intra- and Inter-Regional Economic Relations; Data Analyses on Trade, Direct Investments and Currency Transactions

The currency crisis in the 1997 diversified views on Asian economies. In one view, the ever-expanding image of Asian economies faded away, resulting in a view that Asia could never regain the power to achieve sustainable strong economic growth. In another view, Asia is still believed to continue its high growth rate with strong exports after relatively short adjustment phase. When discussing the future of East Asian economies1, it is very important to capture the whole image of economic relations with other economic regions as well as its interaction within the region. However, some key statistics, which are available in advanced countries, are not always available in Asian economies. Analyses on trade and direct investment between Asia and advanced countries occasionally depend on the statistics compiled by advanced countries. Also, due to the lack of statistical data, analysis of intra-regional economic activities is not so easy. In this paper, we tried to show the current situation and dynamic change of Asian economies quantitatively through analyses of statistical data from various kinds of sources. In this paper, East Asia comprises nine countries and regions: NIEs (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong), four ASEAN countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (herein after called "ASEAN 4")) and China.