Economic Regionalism in Asian and Pacific Region and the Relationship Between Technology Transfer and Human Capital

神奈川県茅ヶ崎市 It is widely said that a rapid economic growth in Asian region now is the engine of development in the world. The questions which we examine in this paper are ; (1) the current and future role of economic regionalism in Asia, (2) direct investment which has contributed to the growth in this region, (3) technology transfer from Japan to other Asian countries, and (4) the factors which determine technology transfer. The recent trend of economic regionalism has offered some possibilities to change, positively or negatively, economic balance of power in the world. We consider the meaning of economic regionalism and sub-bloc (intra-bloc) ones in Asia. It should also be added that direct investment to and within this area has played an important role to encourage economic development. We especially focus on "South-South cooperation (cooperation among developing countries) "or" two-step cooperation" which shows investment flow from NIEs to other Asian countries to boost economy. Some comments from the persons concerned we obtained in Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam suggest that serious problems in development process, such as lack of infrastructure, human resource, energy supply, have occurred. Technology transfer, mainly from Japan to other Asian countries, shows that technology gap still remains in this area. We will carefully examine what encourages technology transfer and how it leads to economic growth, finding the importance of technological opportunity and human capital. It is obvious that technological opportunity and capacity both of which consist of human capital have a crucial role in economic success. What our discussion makes clear is that economic growth cannot be achieved without learning process coupled with in-house R & D activity to absorb superior technology