Papers and Proceedings of the Seventh Pacific Trade and Development Conference : Co-operation and development in the Asia/Pacific region, relations between large and small countries

Abstract

The Seventh Pacific Trade and Development Conference was held in Auckland, New Zealand from 25 to 28 August, 1975. Previous conferences in the series had been held in Tokyo (1968), Hawaii (1969), Sydney (1970), Ottawa (1971), Tokyo (1973) and Mexico City (1974). Each has contributed in a different way to informed discussion of trade and development problems and policies of vital concern to countries of the Pacific Basin .Publication of the major papers and of summaries of the discussions have proved helpful to policymakers and students throughout the region.Accordingly, it was decided that the papers and proceedings of the Seventh Conference should be published in a similar format to that used for the two preceding conferences, and thanks are due to the Japan Economic Research Center for making their facilities available for this purpose.

The countries of the Pacific Basin differ, not only in their political, social and economic systems, but also in size. With this conference being held in a country of relatively small population, which in turn has especially close relations with island nations of even smaller scale, it seemed timely for attention to be given to what effects on co-operation and development in the region flow from the differences in size of its component parts. Accordingly, the theme of the Seventh Conference was "Relations between Large and Small Countries". After two sessions exploring the issues generally, selected case studies of dependent countries in Latin America, South East Asia and the South Pacific were discussed. Development assistance was then considered from the viewpoints of both donors and recipients. Japan and Papua New Guinea provided the basis for consideration of foreign investment from the perspective of both home country and host country. Finally, this Conference broke new ground in the series by considering the topical problem of cooperation in the development of marine resources.

The Conference was sponsored by the New Zealand Association of Economists (Inc.), organised by a New Zealand committee, and administered by the Center for Continuing Education of the University of Auckland.Financial assistance was provided by the New Zealand Government and by the Asia Foundation. We should like to express our gratitude to all those who assisted with sponsorship, organization, administration and finance, as well as those who presented papers and participated in the discussions.