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Presents an essay on Asia Pacific Economic Co‐operation (APEC), an innovative and flexible form of co‐operation designed to accommodate the diversity of the economies on the Pacific Rim. The main challenge for the APEC process is finding a workable compromise between different approaches to economic co‐operation. Points out that the structure of APEC will need great flexibility to accommodate the declining influence of the USA in the Asia Pacific and the increasing strength of the Chinese and South East Asian economies compared to both Japan and the USA. Appendix contains an executive summary of the targets which were agreed by APEC governments, at Bogor, Indonesia, in 1994, in order to realize their vision of free and open trade and investment.

This study aims to examine the role of Australian casinos in facilitating money laundering and Chinese capital flight.

The reports and transcripts of evidence from government inquiries into money laundering in Australian casinos are integrated with analyses of Asian transnational crime.

Money laundering in Australian casinos is linked to transnational crime and Chinese capital flight. A central finding is that junket operators play a key role in facilitating money laundering. The casinos are particularly exposed to criminal influences in the Chinese very important person gambling market, since they have used junket operators and underground banks, many of whom are closely linked to major Chinese criminal groups from Hong Kong and Macau.

Very little information is available on money laundering in Australian casinos and this research has relied on the government inquiries that have been conducted over the past two years on the subject.

The author’s focus on money laundering in Australian casinos in the context of Asia-Pacific transnational crime is important for Federal and state government regulators grappling with the rapidly changing money laundering issues. The government inquiries recognised that the money laundering was related to transnational crime, but did not have the time and resources to explore the topic. The paper provides state government casino regulators and financial crime regulators with a broader international perspective to anticipate future money laundering and crime pressures facing Australia’s casinos.

Money laundering in Australian casinos has had devastating social implications on the community. My research helps to focus attention on the problems of transnational crime and money laundering.

Little research has examined the linkages between casinos and transnational crime. This study has found that Australian casinos were used to launder the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking and to facilitate Chinese capital flight. While casinos have been forced by damming government inquiries to tighten anti-money laundering controls, it is likely that there will be pressure to relax these controls in the future because of competitive pressure from other casinos in the Asia-Pacific region.

The purpose of this study is to examine if consumers have substantially common color preferences in hospitality uniforms for destination brands. Employee uniforms with their dimensions of style, material and color are a crucial part of the coordinated brand message of a business or a destination; however, this has been a void in tourism and hospitality literature. Current visitors to Hong Kong were studied using intercept surveys in four different groups controlling for potential confounding factors. Although results reveal the common perception and preference for black-white-formal uniforms for Hong Kong’s hospitality industry across different treatment groups as well as different cultural groups, implications and discussions are provided as a call for further research in this venue of inquiry.

This is a cross-sectional study using a site intercept survey with structured questionnaires on Chinese and international travelers in Hong Kong. Four different surveys were used as different treatments for four groups of respondents that were randomly assigned into each group. Each group was presented with a different default pair of male and female uniform pictures for the initial evaluation on the first page of the survey, followed by a list of uniforms with different colors and styles on the second page of the survey to select and evaluate their own pairs of male and female uniforms.

Results revealed that consumers’ general favorite colors may not apply to their preferences for the employee uniforms for a destination they visit. Also, there were similarities in the favorite color and choice uniform color for the three general culture groups, such as Chinese, Asia-Pacific and Western consumers, included in the study. Besides, findings implied that Hong Kong may be a strong brand with a uniform color preference for hospitality uniforms for different consumer segments.

This study needs to be considered as an exploratory attempt to bring researchers’ attention to the several questions still to be answered by future research. The results and discussions provided in this study are beyond being robust or conclusive; insights about potential brand connotations with employee uniform colors need to be taken as potential leads for future studies because there is a need for further study in this area.

The importance of hotel employee uniforms for quality hotel experience was the highest for the Chinese group, whereas it was the lowest for the Western group. Chinese and Asia-Pacific respondents placed more importance on uniforms as a cue for a quality hotel experience, which signal a higher level of involvement in visible cues in the consumption environment. Hence, hotels as well as destinations catering to these groups need to take their market segment preferences into consideration before making decisions about brand cues for their products.

There is a lack of attention to the color aspect of service encounter in tourism and hospitality literature. Therefore, color needs attention from researchers as a new venue of research in tourism and hospitality, especially in the tourism destination context. This study is a spearhead to generate interest by intriguing questions for future attention from researchers.

Corruption can take many forms. One of the most alarming aspects of corruption has been the impact of money laundering on financial markets. The amount of money laundered in the Asian region is estimated at approximately $200 billion, or one-fifth the global total. Some of the Asia-Pacific countries still lack any consistent anti-money laundering legislation. The Asia-Pacific region is also home to five of the six remaining non-cooperative countries and territories on The Financial Action Task Force's 2004 list. In this paper, I present a clinical examination of the impact of money laundering and Off-shore financial centres on Asian Pacific financial markets. I describe the money laundering cycle, tools and techniques utilized in the Asia-Pacific region as well as anti-money laundering measures and regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify major challenges that Asia-Pacific policy makers face in drawing up international logistics policies, and to seek possible solutions to the problems.

Case study method: the paper includes seven case studies that attempt to address various types of logistics challenges. The paper introduces both intra- and extra-regional examples of the ways in which those challenges have been overcome in particular contexts through concerted action by government and the private sector.

There are a lot of interesting experiences of overcoming logistics challenges, both inside and outside the Asia-Pacific region. Good practice experiences can be replicated by other countries in the region.

While there have been a lot of discussions on logistics policy reforms, this paper is one of the first attempts that clearly link challenges with concrete case experiences where those are overcome. The paper discusses very practical issues in an analytically sound manner, using case method.

This paper aims to add to the understanding of dynamic capabilities (DC) as sources of competitive advantage of successful Asian-Pacific shipping companies by demonstrating that DC development unfolds in three steps, from recognition that the environment has changed, to the decision to deploy DC, to assets re-orchestration.

Based on an approach involving two illustrative case studies, the author analyzed DC development of Chinese and Singaporean-based shipping groups in depth. The analysis was centered on DC by investigating how strategic decision-making on vertical integration, diversification and implementation of new technologies can be underpinned by developing DC to create sustained advantages.

The author found that strategic components of DC are rooted in strategic decision-making to initiate changes on the corporate and even on an operational level.

While capability development is thoroughly studied, capability erosion has not been integrated into the research. The exploration of human capital as a firm’s idiosyncratic resource in assets orchestration capabilities can be future work.

The proposed research contributes to the debate on micro foundations of DC and provides insights for practitioners striving for retaining competitive advantages.

Regarding implications for the society, the research shows how the DC serve to generate competitive advantages. The author has presented a logical structure of the competitive advantage paradigm as a product of DC and business models that can be useful to decision makers.

The research offers insights into the composition of micro foundations of DC and demonstrates that DC can be unbounded into well-known and concrete strategic and operational management activities.

Intra‐industry trade (IIT) is the simultaneous import and export of goods within the same industry. This paper updates previous work on Australian intra‐industry trade and explores the determinants of IIT. It is the first Australian study to pool time series and cross‐sectional data for this purpose. The empirical work also explores whether the determinants of IIT vary between different groups of trading partners; a distinction is made between Australia’s traditional trading partners and newly emerging trading partners in the Asia Pacific region. The paper finds that Australian IIT has been growing as a proportion of total trade over the past 15 years. The empirical evidence presented suggests that average and relative per capita incomes, distance and trade orientation are all important factors explaining trends of IIT for Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) developments in Myanmar in light of its recent political and economic transition from military rule to a civilian, democratic government. This paper will discuss the changes in Myanmar’s AML/CFT frameworks, as well as international blacklisting and sanctions that have targeted Myanmar since the late 1990s. It also highlights issues that are likely to challenge Myanmar’s ability to ensure compliance with international best practices, especially as the local financial sector expands and foreign investment increases.

This paper draws on available literature and open source reporting.

This review is a timely update of Myanmar’s progress with its AML/CFT frameworks at a time that it is trying to encourage foreign investment and engagement and international businesses. But while Myanmar’s “opening” is seen by many as an opportunity, it still presents significant AML/CFT risks for investors because of a considerable lack of technical expertise, as well as financial and human resources to ensure compliance and enforcement occur.

Myanmar is a very under-researched area and has had minimal focus on its AML/CFT frameworks or the risks present in the economy. This paper will be a useful source for researchers, academics, policymakers, lawyers and private sector actors seeking to engage or invest in Myanmar’s economy.