Indo-Pacific cooperation: what do trade simulations indicate?

Abstract

This paper investigates the potential economic effect of ‘Indo-Pacific’ regional economic cooperation and compares with the extended CPTPP. The Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) results show that the quadrilateral alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India shows although a substantial economic gain whilst South and East Asia join with the Indo-Pacific cooperation, the economic benefit would be enormous. The findings also indicate that South and East Asian improved trade facilitation could bring huge gain as a large part of Indo-Pacific trade has remained unrealized. The trade transaction cost is one of the major trading barriers prohibiting the growth of Indo-Pacific intra-regional trade. The study reinforces that improvement in infrastructure and connectivity that leads to less trade transportation costs should be a necessary step to realise Indo-Pacific trade potential.