Many countries in this region trade a large share of their GDP, mostly in primary or processed primary products. Tariffs and market access are important to East Asian ex­porters, but in the region, agricultural protection remains considerably higher than industrial protection.
     The economy of East Asia and the Pacific has grown rapidly and poverty has fallen. The GDP of this region grew 8.5% in 2004. The number of East Asians living on less than US$2 a day declined by about 250 million between 1999 and 2004. Countries in the region were on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal for poverty reduction, although there was wide variation in progress across and within countries. China exerted strong economic influence through trade and cross-border production networks. Chi­na's growth helped strengthen economic integration within East Asia and increased the region's integration into the global economy. Many countries were considering how to maximize the opportunity China presented, while managing the challenges. High prices for natural resources, especially oil, likely will slow growth in the years ahead. Several other risks also threaten to reduce the rate of growth.
     Most of the population in South Asia depend on agricul­ture and related activities for their livelihood. Despite more than five decades of policy commitment to industrialization, agriculture still is important for most of the countries. All countries in South Asia are low and middle income (Table 1-3). The share of agriculture in total GDP ranges from 18 to 40%, from Sri Lanka to Nepal.
     The share of agricultural products in total exports has declined significantly over the past two decades. However, in net foreign exchange earnings, agriculture is much more important than it appears in gross export earnings. The de­cline in agriculture's share in total exports in these countries cannot be explained solely by the rapid growth in exports of manufactured products. There is considerable evidence that the region lost market share in several agricultural products in which they had comparative advantage, because some countries hold a significant antiexport bias in their incen­tive structures. South Asian agricultural exports have a sig­nificant share of world trade in only five products: spices, rice, tea, oilseeds and jute. In all other major internationally traded agricultural goods, South Asia has less than 4% of the market share.

1.5.2     Trade flows: Main players, commodities and partners
ESAP countries' trade dynamics are vibrant and marked by complex and growing bilateral and multilateral trade agree­ments. The Asian trade has gone global, with ESAP coun­tries emerging as exporters and importers. Cross-border ag­riculture trade has increased. In these countries agriculture trade is also important in domestic economies and is driven by the increasing purchasing power of a growing middle class. But aggregate data on agricultural domestic market effects are difficult to obtain and analyze, since some trade happens informally and in rural and urban links. Hence, this subchapter focuses on international trade in ESAP.
     In import and export trade value, Japan, China, Austra­lia, Thailand and South Korea are the top five countries in ESAP, followed by Malaysia, Indonesia, India, New Zealand and Singapore. Japan with US$71 billion and China with

US$66 billion were also the leading traders in the world in 2004.
     As for exports, China ranks fifth and Australia sixth in the world. They are the biggest exporting countries in ESAP, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand and India.
     Japan is the biggest importer in the region, also the sec­ond biggest importer in the world, just behind the United States. China is the biggest exporter and also one of the biggest importers in the region, ranking fourth in the world. Other big agricultural importers are South Korea, India and Malaysia.
     If the ASEAN countries are regarded as a group, the large traders in the region are China, Japan, ASEAN, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, South Korea and India. The Pacific countries, even though copra and cocoa beans are impor­tant, occupy only a marginal place in total trade value.
     In products traded, Australia and New Zealand export mainly livestock products, especially mutton and lamb, beef, milk products and wool. Indonesia and Malaysia export palm oil and rubber. Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia and India export a large amount of rice and fisheries products. The main world rice exporters come from ESAP, especially from ASEAN countries. China exports mainly vegetables, fruits and maize. India, Sri Lanka and China are the major world exporters of teas. The Pacific countries export copra, cocoa beans and, to a lesser extent, raw sugar.
     Japan, China and South Korea are the three biggest im­porters; Japan and South Korea import most of their agri­cultural products, mainly cereals and meat products. Japan is low in food self-sufficiency, importing about 60% of its supply. China and India import mainly land-intensive prod­ucts, such as soybeans, wheat, cotton and edible oils. Since Singapore has almost no agriculture, it relies almost entirely on food imports.
     Apart from internal trade among countries in the re­gion, USA, Brazil and Europe were the main providers of agricultural products to ESAP. The USA, Europe and Russia were the main destinations for ESAP agricultural exports. However, trade within the region is important. For example, 66% of China's exports go to Asia, Japan and Korea alone accounting for more than 40% of China's total export. ASEAN is also an important trade bloc, with strong trade relations among members.
     Australia and New Zealand had close trade relation­ships with Pacific countries; they were the major exporters to these countries and the main importers from them. Aus­tralia has long been the major source of imports for many of the Pacific Island economies and its importance has in­creased significantly, except in Tonga and Vanuatu. For agri­cultural products as a whole, New Zealand had a relatively small import share, except in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, and that share declined in recent years.
     Asian economies are more important as suppliers of imports than as markets for exports for Pacific Island coun­tries, except for Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. They had a significant import share in many Pacific Island countries, which increased quite sharply in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. However, their share in the imports of Samoa and Tonga eroded considerably and the United States became a much more important import source.