Cross-border infrastructure projects offer significant economic and social benefits for the Asia-Pacific region. If the required investment of $8 trillion in pan-Asian connectivity was made in the region’s infrastructure during 2010–2020, the total net income gains for developing Asia could reach about $12.98 trillion (in 2008 US dollars) during 2010–2020 and beyond, of which more than $4.43 trillion would be gained during 2010–2020 and nearly $8.55 trillion after 2020. Indeed, infrastructure connectivity helps improve regional productivity and competitiveness by facilitating the movement of goods, services and human resources, producing economies of scale, promoting trade and foreign direct investments, creating new business opportunities, stimulating inclusive industrialization and narrowing development gaps between communities, countries or sub-regions. Unfortunately, due to limited financing, progress in the development of cross-border infrastructure in the region is low.

This paper examines the key challenges faced in financing cross-border projects and discusses the roles that different stakeholders—national governments, state-owned enterprises, private sector, regional entities, development financing institutions (DFIs), affected people and civil society organizations—can play in facilitating the development of cross-border infrastructure in the region. In particular, this paper highlights the major risks that deter private sector investments and FDIs and provides recommendations to address these risks.

High-quality implementation of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (cross-border M&As) is an important pathway for emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) to enhance their international competitiveness. However, in comparison to developed countries, cross-border M&As by EMNEs are often prohibited by the liability of origin caused by negative political coverage. How and why negative political coverage affect the completion of cross-border M&As by EMNEs? What are the contextual constraints that moderate the impact of negative political coverage on cross-border M&As completion? Based on the “liability of origin” theory, this paper addresses these questions using data from the Zephyr database on cross-border M&As by EMNEs in the United States from 2016 to June 2021 and employing a logit model for estimation. The research findings are as follows: (1) Negative political coverage leads to negative perceptions of emerging market countries by host country stakeholders, creating the liability of origin and stigmatizing the corporate nationality, thereby reducing the success rate of cross-border M&As by EMNEs. (2) Increasing geographical distance leads to information asymmetry, reinforcing the negative impact of negative political coverage on the completion of cross-border M&As by EMNEs. (3) Relevant mergers and acquisitions exacerbate the negative effect of negative political coverage on the success rate of cross-border M&As by EMNEs. (4) Being a publicly traded firm and having successful experience in cross-border M&As both intensify the negative impact of negative political coverage on the success rate of cross-border M&As by EMNEs.

In the highly developed process of "Internet plus", foreign trade transformation and upgrading, cross-border new retail rapid development has become the trend of the times, cross-border e-commerce new retail digitalization, and improving operational efficiency brings new opportunities. Reshaping the structure of new retail formats, the integration of cross-border e-commerce and new retail formats is an inevitable trend. Smart upgrading and digital transformation are important measures to achieve leapfrog development. The format structure presents business models such as "smart retail, digital cross-border e-commerce, new cross-border e-commerce, new retail, and new retail logistics". The main research objective of this project is to explore and research the new retail scenarios of digital applications in cross-border e-commerce. Based on the current development trend of digital cross-border e-commerce and new retail upgrading, as well as the economic characteristics of the Wuyi area in Jiangmen City, this project aims to use the smart new retail scenario of digital cross-border e-commerce as the foothold, with a focus on upgrading and transforming the product flow chain with the "application scenario" as the central point, form a closed-loop loop of free circulation of products, new retail logistics, cross-border e-commerce, new retail, new sales experience scenarios, and consumers.

Fiscal spending for road construction to link Kalabakan, Sabah, Malaysia with North Kalimantan, Indonesia is an idea that have been proposed for over 20 years. The announcement for the relocation of Indonesia’s capital city from Jakarta to East Kalimantan give a strong justification for the construction of the Serudong-Simanggaris road. The fact that population size is big in Kalimantan and strong purchasing power is estimated in North and East Kaliamantan provide a strong argument for the need to have a road link. Having said that, the effect of road construction on output growth is not clear. The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact of road construction and the business activities across two sectors being assumed on output Sabah’s output growth. Based on the input-output analysis conducted using the output multiplier, the one-off road construction would lead to 1.8% growth in Sabah’s overall output.

As the involvement of Chinese enterprises in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) increases, on the one hand, it can drive enterprises to integrate with the international community and accelerate their transformation and upgrading, continuously enhancing their international competitiveness; on the other hand, it will also cause enterprises to experience more setbacks and challenges, especially the “weak acquisition of the strong” reverse cross-border acquisitions, which makes enterprises face a higher risk of failure. Reasonable control rights allocation can fully utilize the competitive advantages of enterprises, achieve synergistic cooperation among shareholders, board of directors, and management, promote the realization of enterprises’ cross-border acquisition goals, and thus enhance the value creation of acquisitions. There is a positive correlation between internal legitimacy and acquisition performance; the relevant assumptions about the distribution of shareholder control rights are invalid; the control rights at the board of directors level are negatively correlated with internal legitimacy and acquisition performance, and internal legitimacy has a mediating effect between the control rights at the board of directors level and acquisition performance, but the moderating effect of the acquisition mode is not significant; the control rights at the management level are negatively correlated with internal legitimacy and acquisition performance, and internal legitimacy has a mediating effect between the control rights at the management level and acquisition performance, and the acquisition mode negatively moderates the relationship between the control rights at the management level and internal legitimacy. This study takes the post-acquisition control rights allocation as the entry point, and examines the cross-border acquisition activities of Chinese enterprises from the perspective of stakeholders. The research results not only can enrich existing acquisition theory, but also can provide theoretical guidance for Chinese enterprise managers on allocation of control of target enterprises, and provide a theoretical basis for the state to formulate and optimize the system and policies of enterprises’ cross-border acquisitions.