The growth potential of the Northeast Asian region has recently been enhanced following the collapse of socialist regimes in the early 1990s. Although the gaps between the rapidly growing economies and the still stagnant ones are widening, there have been encouraging factors which eventually could narrow those gaps in such areas as inter-regional trade and capital flows, transportation and information networks, etc.

In the light of this challenging environment, an imaginative and creative approach, with sharp analytical tools, is highly necessary. The Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia (ERINA), founded in Niigata City in 1993, in collaboration with Niigata Prefecture, has been engaged in various research projects, covering Northeast China, the Russian Far East, North and South Korea, Mongolia and Japan's northern coastal region.

The main focus of the research is to analyze intra- and inter-regional economic problems such as those of food, energy, industrial activities, transportation, communication, and macroeconomic conditions, and models to tackle these issues.

In order to securely anchor these research activities we have decided to launch a new academic, refereed journal which is open to all researchers—whether in Japan, Northeast Asia, or other regions—who have a profound interest in Northeast Asian sustainable development and cooperation within an analytical framework and in the development of a supporting body of data.

We welcome as many challenging contributions as possible to our new journal.