Economic and social survey of asia and the pacific 2011
such a market include identifying a benchmark price for crude oil or marker crude that is relevant for the region, obtaining support from key buyers and sellers to ensure adequate trading volumes, securing adequate physical storage infrastructure, establishing a conducive regulatory framework and being able to access robust financial markets to support hedging and tradings.45 Other fruitful areas for regional energy cooperation include sharing detailed information on demand, supply and inventory positions and building emergency response mechanisms by increasing physical supply security in Asia and the Pacific through strategic reserves and cross-border inventories.
result in economic benefits for both countries. The country of origin often benefits from remittances sent by migrant workers to their families and the recipient country benefits from the purchases of goods and services by migrants, tourists and international students. In addition, such economic activities, which are often referred to as peopleto-people connectivity, could help promote better mutual understanding, enhanced trust and greater respect for diversity, thus contributing to a culture of peace.46 This section provides a succinct overview of the state of people-to-people connectivity in the areas of labour migration, education and tourism. Migration
The region’s energy security could be increased by enhancing physical connectivity and building institutions to promote cooperation between its energy importers and exporters
International migration of both skilled and less skilled workers is driven by three basic factors: income differences across countries, proximity and networks.47 Income differences are due to differences across countries in economic growth, technological progress, levels and distribution of skills and population dynamics, which result in imbalances across their labour markets and create employment opportunities for migrants. Proximity between the countries of origin and destination of migrants reduces the financial and cultural costs of migration and enables migrants to be in closer contact with family and friends left behind in their country of origin. Immigrant networks often facilitate the search for employment for new migrants and, by creating a sense of community, their adaptation to live in a different country.
Overall, a region-wide framework could encourage further investments in energy infrastructure with a more systematic involvement of the private sector, resulting in increasing volumes of intraregional energy trade and enhanced energy security for both importing and exporting countries.
People-to-people connectivity Exchange activities across countries can be classified into two kinds: those in which the parties to the transaction exchange goods, services, money, or information across the border but without leaving their respective countries, and those in which one of the parties moves to another country to provide a service and/or consume goods and services there. Short-term and long-term labour migration by both skilled and less skilled workers is a prime example of an exchange activity that involves people moving to another country to provide a service. International tourism and studying abroad are examples of exchange activities that involve people moving to another country to consume services. Such activities
Migration flows are difficult to capture because of the variety of types of flows and channels to migrate and because a large number of migrants actually remain unrecorded. The most comprehensive data set of bilateral migration, prepared by researchers of the World Bank and the University of Sussex and updated to 2010, is based on stocks rather than flows. One problem of these data that should be kept in mind is that some countries define immigrants as “foreign born” individuals while others define them as “foreigners”, which include people born in the country but who are not citizens. 140