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This note commemorates and celebrates the life and contribution of M. Hadi Soesastro, a Bulletin board member who passed away on 4 May 2010. Hadi was arguably Indonesia's leading public intellectual in the fields of international economic policy and political economy, ASEAN economic cooperation, and East Asian economic integration. He made seminal contributions in these fields, and on the political economy of reform in Indonesia, the economic development of East Timor, and energy economics. He also played a major role in institutional development, most notably at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and in many other official, academic and research endeavours in Indonesia and East Asia.

This note commemorates and celebrates the life and contribution of M. Hadi Soesastro, a Bulletin board member who passed away on 4 May 2010. Hadi was arguably Indonesia's leading public intellectual in the fields of international economic policy and political economy, ASEAN economic cooperation, and East Asian economic integration. He made seminal contributions in these fields, and on the political economy of reform in Indonesia, the economic development of East Timor, and energy economics. He also played a major role in institutional development, most notably at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and in many other official, academic and research endeavours in Indonesia and East Asia.

The Republic of Indonesia's former Minister of Trade and former Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Professor Mari Pangestu, talks about the country's resilience, and going beyond the 'new normal', in this interview with Philip Zerrillo.

Even a year or two ago, observers could have been relatively sanguine about the boom of interest in free trade agreements (FTAs). Progress was much slower than people originally expected, and negotiations seemed to drag on without agreement being reached. That situation has now changed. The large economies – not just the United States but also China, Japan and South Korea – are pursuing FTAs. Motivations apparently include their contribution to domestic and international political targets, the mobilisation of reform and dealing with new types of impediments in order to intensify trade flows in the region. ASEAN members are also actively involved but there are doubts about ASEAN's capacity to reach a consensus on trade policy issues. While its members might hope otherwise, a hub-and-spoke outcome in which ASEAN members make up the spokes, and not the hub, is a plausible scenario, and one of the worst in terms of a regional trading regime. We therefore argue the case for the application of a new set of principles to provide a framework for risk management, including progress in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on liberalisation, new WTO rules on regional agreements, higher levels of transparency, and more work on other forms of agreement to facilitate trade. Overall, multilateralisation of preferential tariff reductions should be the main benchmark in any new set of principles for risk management in the tactic of trading with favourites.

Even a year or two ago, observers could have been relatively sanguine about the boom of interest in free trade agreements (FTAs). Progress was much slower than people originally expected, and negotiations seemed to drag on without agreement being reached. That situation has now changed. The large economies – not just the United States but also China, Japan and South Korea – are pursuing FTAs. Motivations apparently include their contribution to domestic and international political targets, the mobilisation of reform and dealing with new types of impediments in order to intensify trade flows in the region. ASEAN members are also actively involved but there are doubts about ASEAN's capacity to reach a consensus on trade policy issues. While its members might hope otherwise, a hub-and-spoke outcome in which ASEAN members make up the spokes, and not the hub, is a plausible scenario, and one of the worst in terms of a regional trading regime. We therefore argue the case for the application of a new set of principles to provide a framework for risk management, including progress in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on liberalisation, new WTO rules on regional agreements, higher levels of transparency, and more work on other forms of agreement to facilitate trade. Overall, multilateralisation of preferential tariff reductions should be the main benchmark in any new set of principles for risk management in the tactic of trading with favourites.