Asia-Pacific economies should boost intera-regional trade, the United Nations said Monday. The total exports of the countries in the region from Iraq to the Philippines was on track to grow by 9 per cent in 2011, down from a growth of 17.3 per cent in 2010, the UN said in a report. "Opportunities for export expansion will depend largely on the growth of intraregional demand," said Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Maintaining export growth would also depend on "the ability of various developing countries of the region to restructure and diversify their exports to meet that demand," she was quoted as saying by the German Press Agency "DPA" in the ESCAP-published Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2011.
