
Infrastructure for a Seamless Asia
Flagship study that analyzes major challenges in developing regional infrastructure, particularly transport and energy through regional cooperation towards a seamless Asia.
Countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion are working to make the movement of goods and services across borders faster, easier, cheaper, more compliant, and more inclusive.
Over the past decade, the Greater Mekong Subregion’s (GMS) road network has expanded by almost 200,000 kilometers, and overland road freight has almost doubled. Yet despite these advances, remaining barriers to trade and transport continue to inhibit the subregion’s full economic potential and the cost of cross-border land transport remains high.
With much of the hard infrastructure in place, there has been a greater focus in recent years on the rules, regulations, agreements, and other “software” to make the movement of goods and services across borders in the GMS faster, easier, cheaper, more compliant, and more inclusive.
The GMS Economic Cooperation Program Strategic Framework 2030 (GMS-2030) focus on trade facilitation will modernize customs and establish sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. It will also strengthen links to the private sector. GMS-2030 will support the development of e-commerce platforms in the subregion. By facilitating investment, the strategy will ease or eliminate investment flow constraints and create an integrated investment market. GMS-2030 was endorsed and adopted at the 7th GMS Summit of Leaders in September 2021. It aims to provide a new setting for the development of this subregion for the next decade.
The GMS Transport and Trade Facilitation Action Program is working to overcome existing barriers in order to link the subregion to the ASEAN Economic Community’s single market and production base, as well as other regional cooperation initiatives.
The program is helping to expand transport and traffic rights along the GMS Cross Border Transport Facilitation Agreement (CBTA). route network; simplify and modernize customs procedures and border management; and strengthen the capacity of sanitary and phytosanitary agencies in the subregion.
To facilitate progressive implementation of the CBTA, the GMS Transport Ministers as members of the CBTA Joint Committee agreed to an “Early Harvest” memorandum of understanding to allow the issuance and mutual recognition of GMS Road Transport Permits along the CBTA Protocol 1 route network and the border crossing points along these routes starting August 2018. This initiative was suspended with the closure of international borders during the Covid-19 health pandemic, but reinstated by the Ministers for a further three-year period at the Eighth CBTA Joint Committee meeting in December 2023.
Related
• Working Group on Trade and Investment
• ‘Early Harvest’ Implementation of the Cross-Border Transport Facilitation Agreement
• Joint Committee for the CBTA
• Statement of the Seventh Meeting of the Joint Committee for the CBTA (13 March 2019)
Focal Persons at the Asian Development Bank
Mohammad Nazrul Islam
Transport Sector Office
Sectors Group
Other Concerned Staff & Consultants
Antonio Ressano
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Southeast Asia Department
Lucia Martin Casanueva
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Southeast Asia Department/GMS Secretariat
Yuya Yamamoto
Regional Cooperation and Integration and Trade Divisiont
Climate Change and Sustainable Development Department
Other Concerned Staff & Consultants
Antonio Ressano
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Southeast Asia Department
Maria Mendez Martinez
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Southeast Asia Department/GMS Secretariat
Send inquiries to GMS Secretariat.
Flagship study that analyzes major challenges in developing regional infrastructure, particularly transport and energy through regional cooperation towards a seamless Asia.
As trade is an important driver of growth and infrastructure is a necessity for trade, infrastructure development has a key role to play in economic development. This study aims to quantify the potential benefits of the development of the economic transport corridors, along with the implementation of the Cross-Border Transport Agreement (CBTA) in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Some of the key linkages between upgraded infrastructure, economic growth, and sectoral responses are explored using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework.
In this issue of the Journal of Greater Mekong Subregion Development Studies, we feature five articles that concern some of the more pressing issues of cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) - trade facilitation and trade logistics, the trade impact of cross-border transport infrastructure, tourism corridor development, and biofuels and rural renewable energy. The diversity of the topics tackled in this volume reflects the multifaceted challenges of regional cooperation.
This is the statement issued by the Joint Committee for the Cross-Border Transport Facilitation Agreement in Beijing, People’s Republic of China on 20 March 2007.
The Fifth Meeting of the Trade Facilitation Working Group (TFWG-5) was held on 16-17 May 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand. The Meeting was chaired by the Ms. Pranee Siriphand, Director of the Bureau of Border Trade and Special Initiative, Department of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce, Thailand for sessions I-IV and Mr. Sun Yuanjiang Director, Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, People's Republic of China (PRC) for sessions V-VII. Mr.
Collaborative infrastructure projects are undertaken in the Greater Mekong Subregion because, in theory, they help to promote greater trade and investment flows among neighboring countries.
This publication outlines the GMS Economic Cooperation Program (GMS Program) which was initiated in 1992 with the support of ADB. It aims to promote economic cooperation among Cambodia, People's Republic of China (PRC), Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam.
The GMS Program covers nine priority sectors: transportation, telecommunications, energy, environment, human resource development, trade, investment, tourism, and agriculture.
The fledgling Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Journal for Development Studies, published under the auspices of the Phnom Penh Plan (PPP) for Development Management, moves a step ahead with the second issue. In what might be considered as "ascending steps," GMS scholarship is moving forward, slowly but surely. The PPP's commitment is to ensure that we continue to make strides towards our goal of bridging the gap between research and capacity building and to propagate the gospel of balanced socioeconomic development in the GMS.
The Special Meeting of the Trade Facilitation Working Group (TWFG) was held at ADB Headquarters, Manila, Philippines on 25-26 April 2005. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Robert Boumphrey, Director of the Governance, Finance and Trade Division of ADB's Mekong Department. Seventeen officials from the commerce, trade, customs, immigration and quarantine agencies of the six GMS countries as well as ADB staff participated in the Meeting.
The first meeting of the Joint Committee for the Greater Mekong Subregion Cross-Border Transport Agreement was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 30 April 2004. The meeting was jointly organized by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport of the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Asian Development Bank.