4 - Comparing Corridor Development in the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The development of logistics services and communication technologies has revolutionized production and distribution processes, and has created the “global” market. It is within this competitive environment that shippers and consignees require efficient logistics services that can move their goods in the right place, at the right time, in the right condition, and at the right price (Banomyong and Faust 2010).

According to Fujimura (2008), it is therefore of great importance that regional linkages among neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia are strengthened in order to facilitate trade, enhance regional economic integration and develop logistics for better access to the “global” market. It is acknowledged that having an efficient logistics system in Southeast Asia can help not only support regional economic integration but also improve connectivity with the rest of the world (ERIA 2010).

In Southeast Asia there exist a number of subregional initiatives that focus on economic corridor development to help accelerate economic integration such as the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) or the Indonesia–Malaysia– Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT). The purpose of this chapter is to present a comparative analysis of corridor development level between these two subregional initiatives.

The chapter begins with a general background description of the GMS and the IMT-GT in order to provide a better understanding of the context involved. The following section introduces the conceptual framework and explains the various types of economic corridor development. Section 3 describes the results of the comparative assessment while Section 4 is the summary.

BACKGROUND OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN SUBREGIONAL INITIATIVES

The Greater Mekong Subregion

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is composed of Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as Yunnan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 1992, with the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) assistance, the six countries entered into a programme of subregional economic cooperation, designed to enhance economic relations among the countries. The GMS countries are illustrated in Map 2.2.