Less poverty but also greater social inequalities in East Asia, World Bank says
Manila (AsiaNews) The Philippines and East Asia have made progress in the fight against poverty but social inequality remains widespread, especially in rural areas, this according to a new report by the World Bank (WB) released on Monday at its annual meeting.
Titled An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Growth, the report is signed by Homi Kharas, the WB's chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific, and Indermit Gill, an economic adviser. The authors note that the region had championed poverty reduction but still faces urgent challenges like inequality, social cohesion, corruption and environmental degradation. For instance, the number of Filipinos living on less than US$ 1 a day dropped to 9 million, or 10.8 per cent of the population, as of the end of 2005 from 12 million or 13.5 per cent of the population in 2000, that is a 2.7 per cent reduction in five years.
Using a poverty line of a day, the WB report estimated that 585 million East Asians were still poorabout 375 million in China, 100 million in Indonesia, 40 million in Vietnam, 35 million in the Philippines and about 30 million in the other countries in the region. This benchmark placed the Philippines' US$ 2 a day poverty line at 41.9 per cent of the population, lower than the 47.2 per cent in 2000.
Strong and steady economic growth were the principal reason for the reduced poverty in the region. For Kharas, "[w]hat's going on now in East Asia is something quite new: a renaissance. . . . The new Asia is more innovative and networkedit's characterised by a very competitive business environment that encourages new products and processes and a labour force able to absorb new ideas."
This renaissance has however increased social inequality across the region, widening rural-urban gap in incomes, consumption, poverty, education and health. These factors must be defeated before one can speak of a true Asian renaissance.
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