The side of a bridge leading to Myanmar's mainland

Is Regionalism Passé? Infrastructure for Integrating South and Southeast Asia

Wednesday 22nd March 2017, 12.30 - 2.00pm; Room 9.05, Tower 2
Speaker: Dr Ganeshan Wignaraja; Chair: Dr Jürgen Haacke

Amidst growing skepticism about globalization and the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, Asian regionalism is flourishing. Asia’s regional hub - the ASEAN Economic Community – is poised to extend to India and the rest of South Asia. Regional infrastructure is the vehicle of choice to link Asia’s two most dynamic sub-regions spurred by huge new infrastructure initiatives and new development banks by major East Asian powers.

This seminar will examine the costs and benefits of closer infrastructure connectivity between South and Southeast Asia, the political economy of infrastructure investment financing, and the role of national policies and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It draws on Connecting Asia: Infrastructure for Integrating South and Southeast Asia co-edited by the speaker.

Download and listen to the podcast here

Speaker

wignaraja-ganeshan

Ganeshan Wignaraja is an Advisor at the Asian Development Bank. Previously he was Director of Research of the ADB Institute in Tokyo and has published 18 books on trade, regionalism and development. He has a BSc in economics from LSE and a DPhil in economics from Oxford University.


Chair

haacke-jurgen

Jürgen Haacke is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and Associate Professor of International Relations at LSE.