New Asean Member Countries’ Exports to Japan: An Assessment of the New Goods Margin

Growth in exports along extensive margins has been observed during periods of trade liberalization. A rise in new goods margins is important for developing countries as this is a sign of increasing productivity of local firms and a move from overdependence on a small basket of goods. Adapting the methodology of Kehoe and Rul. This study evaluates the changes in the share of total value of the least traded export goods from new ASEAN member countries to Japan before and after the ratification of the ASEAN-Japan FTA. For each of the four countries, a baseline of HS lines of products comprising near 10% of total export value in 2009 was created from the BACI dataset. The analyses show that by 2018 the share of least traded goods to Japan have risen to almost 69% of total export value for Cambodia, 57% for Myanmar and 55% for Laos. For Vietnam, the rise is a modest 29%.