EUROPE 1992 AND THE WESTERN PACIFIC ECONOMIES.

This article seeks to assess the effects of the European community under the 1992 program and related changes currently underway in Europe on the trade and growth prospects of a particularly vulnerable group, namely, the Western Pacific economies. The next section of this article explains why the Western Pacific region is a natural grouping of economies for considering external effects of European policy changes. The subsequent section summarizes the likely effects of those changes on the volume and commodity composition of Europe's external trade, and hence on the trade and welfare of different Western Pacific economies. The fourth section examines possible responses by that region to these developments and their likely repercussions for Europe. The paper concludes that while the Western Pacific economies are likely to respond positively to whatever changes take place in Europe, welfare there, in Europe, and in the rest of the world will be greater the more Europe supports the multilateral trading system in deed as well as in word.