Economic regionalization in the Asia-Pacific was institutionalized in 1989 when

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was constituted. In 1993, for the first time the APEC Summit meeting was attended by Presidents and Prime Ministers of APEC member-countries and became a forum for much global attention. Accelerated industrialization of a select group of Asian economies was the base for the Asia-Pacific economic awareness. In 1998, APEC membership consists of twenty-one sovereign nation-state based economies. Certainly to a certain extent, economic regionalization experiment in the Western Europe, beginning with The Treaty of Rome (1968) through The Treaty of Maastricht (1992), now the European Union (EU) must have been a contributing factor. As of January 1, 1999, the Euro Revolution has added a new dimension to the eventful happenings in Western Europe.

APEC must develop its independent model for economic regionalization as a simple replication of the Western European model may not be an optimum strategy. It has been argued that the core points for consideration are: ( a) a map-of-the-world view of a region must be the geographic base; ( b ) the intra-regional free flow of trade-investment plus movement of human capital and labor will be the microeconomic framework; and ( c ) a shared commitment to an intra-regional macroeconomic agenda transparently defined by monetary and fiscal guidelines will provide the necessary and sufficient condition for the optimization of economic gains. for all micro actors – households as well as business units belonging to all member economies of the regional group. An economic map will have been placed on the geographic map of the specific region, where a set of sovereign nation-sate based economies have elected to join the intra-regional group.

Recently, the case for Asian Economic Community, consisting of China, Japan and Korea plus the selected members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has gained some momentum. An option will be to make APEC more comprehensive to include the American Hemisphere – North and South – plus the Asian continent..

The 24^th ACAES international conference on Asian economics will provide an open platform to examine the above issues. The regional background of 21-member APEC relates to the map of the Pacific Ocean, or the Lake Pacific, as I have suggested elsewhere. This merits further review. Can APEC agenda for free trade, based on a time schedule of ten and twenty years, ever be operational? Does it work without an intra-regional macroeconomic core? The recent financial crisis in several Asian economies has urgently called for an examination of these issues. Literature on Customs Union, Free Trade Area, Optimum Currency Area , Gravity Model is very rich in learned discourses. The conference in Beijing March 14-16, 2001 will invite fifty economists from all Asia-Pacific countries inclusive of South Pacific and invited participants from South Asia and European Union (EU) member-countries to be joined by 150 of their fellow economists from the host country, China in the present case . At this three-day event, related issues will be examined. Participants will make presentations on their research work at regular sessions and there will be special presentations at the two ROUNDTABLE sessions..

Subject to availability of funds, ACAES plans to invite special guest participants from

the five other regions of developing economies as per the guideline of The World Bank. The World Bank has grouped developing economies of the world in seven regions – East Asia, South Asia, Central and South America, Africa, Middle East, Southeast Europe and Russia-independent Republics in the neighboring region. Ever since 1981 when the first ACAES conference was held, ACAES conferences have invited participants from both East Asia and South Asia.. Thus, invitation to two economists from the remaining five regions, as noted above, will be an imaginative step forward..

American Committee on Asian Economic Studies (ACAES) was founded in 1982 following a very successful conference on "United States-Asia Economic Relations" held in the spring of 1981 at the New Brunswick Campus of Rutgers University. ACAES is an inter-university program, administered by an Executive Board of 37 economists from 33 universities and research institutes in the United States, plus 10 economists from ten universities elected for four-year terms , and a 7-member Board of Trustees. Professor Lawrence R. Klein of University of Pennsylvania, the 1980 Nobel Laureate in Economics, has been a founding member of ACAES and has actively participated in its activities, attending and making

presentations at twelve of the twenty-three ACAES conferences. ACAES activities include

( a ) sponsoring conferences, ( b) sponsoring publication of a quarterly economic journal, Journal of Asian Economics, now published by Elsevier Science, and ( c) publication of fifteen volumes of monographs, based on revised versions of presentations at its conferences..

Of the 23 ACAES conferences between 1981 and 1999, five were held in China, two in Thailand, one each in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India and the remaining ten were held in the United States. ACAES always had a co-sponsor(s) for its conferences and the cosponsors of ACAES conferences include:: Seoul National University and Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in South Korea, University of Malaya and The Malaysian Economic Association in Malaysia; The Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong; Chulalongkon University and Chulalongkorn Economics Association in Thailand; University of Indonesia and The Indonesian Economics Association in Indonesia; Tokai University at Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan; Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) ,Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), and Shanghai Pudong New Area Administration in China: Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. For the ten conferences in the United States, co-sponsoring institutions of ACAES conferences include Rutgers University, Columbia University in the City of New York,, Brandeis University at Walthum, The Asia Society of New York, The Port Authority of NY & NJ, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

ACAES publications include Research in Asian Economic Studies (1998) eds: Dutta-Hooley-Mahani; Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: Theory and Practice (1996) Parts A & B, eds: Hooley-Nasution-Pangestu-Dutta ; Asia-Pacific Economic Community? (1995) eds: Dutta- Green-Suthiphand –Paitoon; Asia-Pacific Economies: 1990s and Beyond (1994) eds. Dutta and Shiratori; Asian Economic Regimes: Adaptive Innovation Paradigm (1992)

Parts A & B , ed. M. Dutta; China’s Economic Reform 1978-1988 (1991) eds: Dutta and Zhang; China’s Modernization and Open Economic Policy (1990) eds. Dutta-Chang-Lin;

Asian Industrialization and Changing Economic Structures (1988) Parts A & B, ed. Dutta;

Asia –Pacific Economies: Promises and Challenges (1987), Parts A & B, ed. Dutta;

Studies in United States-Asia Economic Relations (1985) ed. Dutta; Retrospect and Prospect: Chinese and American Economists’ Views on China’s Economy (1991) eds:Dutta-Zhang-Jefferson-Yao (in Chinese) . In addition one volume is in the press and manuscripts of yet another volume are being edited.

Revised versions of conference papers will be published in a volume. ACAES has a