The Asian Economic Community concept is being widely discussed, and it is now time for those primarily involved, such as specialists in academic, government and financial circles, to become actively engaged in furthering the establishment of policies and mechanisms required to fl esh out the concept and establish the Community. This is why, through the Toward an Asian Economic Community: The Way Forward project (from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2005), SPF promoted a greater public awareness of issues related to trade, investment, finance, currency, energy and technology transfers, all of which must be considered before establishing an Asian Economic Community as a comprehensive cooperative system for the Asian region. To promote this public awareness, the project encouraged policy research, increased awareness of the issues, and distributed information.
Building on the results of the above-mentioned project, this project aimed to (1) promote research activities regarding the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Arrangement of East Asia (CEPEA, which encompasses the ASEAN Plus Six nations, and (2) provide a discussion platform for a greater number of stakeholders, particularly those in government, finance and the media.
Under the project, which lasted for three years beginning in fiscal 2006, research focused on ways to achieve comprehensive economic partnerships using the CEAPA model. During the first two years of the project, a specialist in the field, Dr. Rajiv Kumar, director and chief executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, was commissioned to serve as project advisor, and his cooperation pushed the project forward. During the three year project, 27 discussion papers on economic integration in East Asia were prepared, including papers titled Deepening Regional Cooperation in the Bay of Bengal: Agenda of the BIMSTEC Summit, Economic Cooperation for Narrowing Development Gaps in CEPEA, and Towards an Asian "Bretton Woods" for Restructuring of the Regional Financial Architecture. Project participants contributed information to newspaper columns, and information on the results of the research activities was published on a website (www.newasiaforum.org) and in a quarterly newsletter. In addition, annual international conferences were held before East Asia summits, providing other opportunities to distribute information on updated research results. It is anticipated that the ongoing release of information on the CEPEA concept, which will become the subject of serious negotiations, will continue to help translate the concept into reality.