Monday, April 6, 2009

Opinion - Crisis an opportunity to rebalance Asian growth

Interesting... but the author of this interesting op-ed from CS.com is not actually listed. Rather CS.com reports the author of the editorial has been written by the "Acting Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank in Manila."

Here's an excerpt to grab your attention or click here to access the article in its entirety from CS.com

Today's global economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. And developing-Asia is being hit much harder than initially thought. It is now time-in fact it is an opportunity-to re-balance our recent rapid economic growth to help protect us from future external shocks and to strengthen our internal sources of growth.

Average growth in the region declined about three percentage points last year - to 6.3 percent. Our 2009 Asian Development Outlook now forecasts that growth will slow this year again by close to 3 percentage points - to 3.4 percent.

Many emerging Asian economies will suffer severe recession.

The region's two giants - China and India - are also seeing their rapid economic expansions curtailed. What does this mean to the people of our region? ADB estimates that more than 60 million will remain trapped in absolute poverty - surviving on less than $1.25 a day - people who in 2008/09 would have otherwise broken through the poverty threshold had 2007 growth rates continued.

Click here to access the full article from CS.com

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