North Korea has been in political and economic straits since the collapse of the socialist bloc in the early 1990s. Several problems remain as obstacles to the recovery of the North Korean economy, including a continued deterioration in overall production, economic inefficiency, difficultly in foreign relations, and political and military frictions with the outside world. Therefore, North Korea's economic development should be made on the basis of the reform and opening of the economic system and the building of peace on the Korean peninsula through improved relations with neighboring countries. This process will contribute to the building of a peaceful structure on the Korean peninsula and international stability as well as having a positive influence on North Korea itself. (The rest is omitted.)

As trade integration deepens in East Asia, it is expected that there will be closer links in business cycles among East Asian countries. Theoretically, however, increased trade can lead business cycles across trading partners to shift in either direction: while inter-industry trade resulting in higher specialization would induce less synchronization, intra-industry trade could overturn this tendency. By using the data for twelve Asian economies, this paper finds that intra-industry trade is the major channel through which business cycles become synchronized among Asian economies, although increased trade itself does not necessarily lead to close business cycle coherence. This result has important implications for the prospects of a currency union in the region.

After the financial crisis of 1997, the Korean government drastically changed its policy toward foreign direct investment (FDI) by implementing extensive liberalization measures and undertaking all-out efforts to promote FDI. Thanks to these policy changes accompanied by the global IT boom, FDI flowed into Korea in a record amounts during the period 1999-2000. (The rest is omitted.)

In the year 2000, Korea officially became an aging society according to UN designations and by the year 2022, it is expected that Korea will be a full-fledged aged society. With this aging trend, there are concerns that the increasing pension expenses will accelerate the imbalance in public finance. (The rest is omitted.)

I. Introduction and General Overview

II. Comparison of Similarities and Differences in Municipal Finance
1. Expenditure Assignments
2. Revenue Assignments
3. Intergovernmental Transfer Systems
4. Municipal Borrowings and Debt Management

III. Summary and Concluding Remarks

References

The recent process of political and economic transition has made a significant contribu-tion to the improvement of the fiscal autonomy of municipalities in the eastern European countries. In this context similar types of public activities have recently been assigned to local governments, whereas some taxes were declared to be local taxes. On the other hand, this type of fiscal decentralisation has caused some additional problems, particularly for safeguarding the quality of publicly provided utilities and for co-ordinating intergovern-mental fiscal resource allocation. For instance, some criticise that many small-sized, peripheral municipalities in the transition economies have suffered from financial bottle-necks and have not been able to receive sufficient financial support from the central gov-ernment. However, such a fiscal devolution trend appears to continue. This study pri-marily deals with issues surrounding the impact of national fiscal policy and the regulato-ry framework on local governments' expenditure behaviour and their ability to mobilise necessary revenues under the particular consideration of the institutional and administra-tive co-operation with the central government and of the less well-developed financial market in Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The inefficient corporate sector was at the core of the Korean financial crisis that broke out in late 1997. This study tries to review and analyze the Korean economy's policy measures to restructure the corporate sector and ultimately restore the economy. (The rest is omitted.)

Taking the macroeconomic and balance of payments crisis of July 1991 as a turning point, India adopted a policy of active reintegration to the world economy. India implemented a reformist agenda of liberalizing domestic markets and opening up its economy. India's economy has shown rapid progress owing to its remarkable performance in manufacturing and exports in the late 1990s, especially in IT. India became one of the most rapidly growing economies, expanding at an average annual rate of 6 percent over the past decade. Despite the economic crisis that swept Asia in 1997 and 1998 and the recent economically challenging global environment, India has recorded relatively sound growth rate. India's IT industry has emerged as a key engine of growth in the twenty first century due to its world-class technology and strong growth. In 2002/2003, India's IT industry grew by a phenomenal 21 percent to Rs 79,340 crore (US$16.5 billion) with 75 percent of the revenue coming from the IT software and service industry. The IT software and services sector has functioned not only to drive growth, but also to attract FDI into IT and other related Industries. (The rest is omitted.)

Increasing Trends of Intra-Industry Trade in East Asia and their Policy Implications Jae Wook Park
The phenomenon of intra-industry trade(IIT) takes place when countries simultaneously import and export goods produced by the same industry. This two-way trade was empirically observed in studies carried out in the 1960s which dealt mainly with the effects of economic integration on specialization in trade.
Unfortunately, researches on intra-industry trade and economic integration have been centered on the trade among developed countries in the western hemisphere. Relatively few studies have been done on the trade among developing countries in the East Asia. Given that per capita income levels, the size of markets, resource base and industrial structure of countries are all influenced by the process of economic development, it can be expected that empirical evidence should show IIT is related to the level of development, in line with economic growth. (The rest is omitted.)

UAE's Policy for Inducing Foreign Investment

The United Arab Emirates(UAE) is a federation of seven emirates located on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The UAE holds about 10% of the world's proven oil reserves and needless to say, oil is the mainstay of the economy. Alike most of other states in the middle east, heavy dependence on oil led to high fluctuation of economy from volatility in oil prices and oil export volumes. To safeguard the economy from these uncertainties, the federal government spent more than US$6.8 billion to develop manufacturing industry during the last 30 years. And as a result, more than 1,000 manufacturing factories were built from total investment of around US$20billion. While oil related industries are concentrated in Abu Dhabi, non-oil industries are aggregated in Dubai, which has achieved high rate of growth leading economic diversification of UAE. (The rest is omitted.)

African countries have formulated and implemented their development plan in order to establish lagging infrastructure. The basic aim and strategy for economic development differs from country to country, however, in general, the main core of development investment is focused to infrastructure and basic industries. African countries' policy concentrates on these areas due to the fact that African countries fall behind in basic public facilities even among the developing countries. Moreover, unlike other developing countries including Southeast Asia and Latin America, Africa heavily depends on foreign construction firms in most construction work because it lacks local supply capability. consequently, Korean firms have high possibility of advancing into African market.
It is true that the size of the construction industry in Africa is rather small compare to other newly emerging regions due to small-scaled economy and lack of development resource, however, the fact that the construction demand is expanding with the promotion of economic development should not be neglected.
Because Korean construction firms' advance into foreign markets is heavily concentrated to Asia and Middle East regions, difficulties arise in times of insecurity in the Middle East and this fact have become the fragile point in Korea's foreign construction industry. Thus, Korea needs to pour efforts into entering to new markets through market diversification such as Africa. Based on this understanding, this study chose to utilize data from in and out of the country, visit and interview construction related institutions to analyze the characteristics of construction market and supply and demand structure of Africa and the expansion measures to advance into African market. The study found several characteristics of African construction market. First, Africa heavily depends on foreign order in plant sector. In 6 countries of Northern Africa, plant sector holds the most portion of the order structure with over 60% of the whole order in last 5 years. This is because labor-intensive construction is mostly given to domestic countries while plant construction, which needs high technology, depends on foreign ordering due to domestic firms' lack of supply capability. The fact that demand of plant related construction has increased in the process of industrialization promotion and energy development implies important points to Korea's construction sector, which is currently under consideration to advance into African market. The foreign construction order structure may differ from country to country by each country's industry structure and economic characteristics. For oil producing countries, the portion of plant construction for energy development takes up an overwhelming part. For example, in oil producing countries such as Algeria, Egypt, and Libya, plant construction portion of foreign order takes up 50-80% while 60% is comprised with engineering works for non-oil producing country like Morocco. Second, the market is mainly controled by Europe. This is due to subordinate economic structure formed since the colonial period between the two region. This means that Korean firms will have to directly compete with European firms in African markets. Third, domestic construction participating rate, the rate of construction ordered and built wholly or partly by domestic firm, is relatively far lower than the Middle East. This not only mean that Africa inevitably depends on foreign constructing firms because domestic firms lack capability, but also the fact that Africa's construction market openness is fairly high, especially in plant sector. Fourth, in joint construction structure, competing developing countries has high order achieving rate though joint construction or formation of consortium, while Korea has the lowest rate among 8 competing countries. This show that Korean firms regards other Korean firms as a competitor rather than to work under mutual cooperation.
Expansion of Korean firms' advance into African construction market may not be easy due to complex factors such as Africa's subordinate economic structure to Europe since the colonial period and Europe's high market control, competing countries' advance into African market, and lack of experience in advance into African construction market. Therefore, it is desirable to select prospective markets in order to achieve efficient and strategic access to huge and unexploited African construction market. Thus, this study selects Libya, Algeria, and Morocco under comprehensive consideration of elements such as the size of the market, whether or not a oil producing country, and domestic interest in construction sector. The rationale behind considering whether the country produces oil or not was because the construction demand for the development of energy resources such as petroleum and natural gas is far larger than simple constructions like engineering. Also, the former may have continuing demand. Recently, with increased demand in petroleum due to its high price, construction demand for basic energy facilities and infrastructure such as development of new petroleum and gas field and electricity power business have greatly increased. Libya, with increased oil price due to the UN's provisional suspension measure of economic restriction, is reordering large-scale projects on oil and gas development and electricity power increasing opportunities to Korean firms' advance into high value-added plant sector. Moreover, Libya has been Korea's key market and Korea can utilize the constructing experience earned from Libya as the foothold into Northern Africa market. Algeria is one of the 3 major construction countries and is currently promoting reinforcement of basic energy facilities. When its political unstability settles down, its market is considered as a prospect market in plant sectors such as oil and gas. Morocco's construction market is currently unexploited, however has great potential for Korean firms because it is currently promoting infrastructure development such as expanding electricity power business, harbor, and road. Morocco included the construction of the World Cup Stadium as a part of government-driven project, and Korea may take a part in this project.
The measures to expand advance into African construction market need several consideration. First, for efficiency, close and cooperative relation with local government, regional society, ordering authorities are essential in order to achieve stable advancing conditions. Recent trend shows the linkage between economic cooperation and achieving the construction order. Also, the government officials of Africa tend to have great influence relative to other developing countries. Thus, enhancing diplomatic relations and economic cooperation may contribute to Korean firms in advancing into African market. Second, Regarding the characteristics of African market, that is, market restriction factors and high risk, and heavy control by developed countries, it is desirable to form consortium with other developed countries' firms or local firms with plenty of experience. Working with firms form developed countries may minimize the economic risk and also complement the lacking in capital, technology, information, and experience. Working with domestic firms has many advantages such as superiority in competence, information of the order, labor and equipment supply, and coping with administrative procedures at the beginning stage of the advance into African market. Third, enhancement of achieving plant order and capital supply is also one of the core strategic elements to expand advance into African market. Although it is an world-wide trend, plant order is increasing in Africa also and this is expected to continue in the future.
Especially based on oil producing countries in North Africa, construction demand is sharply increasing due to the promotion of industrialization, petrochemical plant for energy development, petroleum and gas disposal facilities, and electricity power plant expansion. Comprehensive analysis for strategic advance into African market is thus needed. Project aiming establishment of basic infrastructure is continuously increasing, however, simple orders like engineering is taken by domestic firms or latecomers such as China. Therefore, Korea feasibility of order expansion is decided upon achieving orders in plant sector. The competitiveness in the foreign construction market is greatly influenced by the capability of capital supply. Especially in Africa, because it lacks financial resources, it strongly requires the construction firm with financial capacity. This may be one of the reason why Japanese or European firms have high control over African market, not to mention technical superiority. In this situation, in order to increase the impact of advancing into Africa, it is necessary to either achieve capital self sufficiency or mediation of capital. Lastly, the fact that African construction market, with few exceptions, is an unexploited market for Korean firms, the establishment of comprehensive marketing capacity and project information is very important. Korean firms lack ins comprehensive information gathering in African market due to no experience in economic relation and negative perceptions compare to the Middle East or Southeast Asia. It is true that in accurate information leads to high possibility of earning the order in every market, however, due to its unreliability of the market and uncertainty of achieving the order, access to accurate information directly affects the success in earning the order especially in African market.
Korea's advance into Africa's construction market stays at low level due to many restrictive factors and limits. However, other than these internal factors, Korea has its own problems, that is, lack of initiative of Korean firms should not be neglected as one of a crucial factor to inactivity in African market. Africa is a potential market in which Korean firms may expand their market share.