Asian economies to lead world growth: WB
Asian economies to lead world growth: WB
BOMBAY (Reuter): Asian economies will lead global growth in
the next century with those in East Asia continuing to fuel the
rise, the World Bank's managing director said yesterday.
"Asian economies will no longer be impacted by the world
economy but will impact the global economy," Gautam Kaji, World
Bank managing director told Reuters in an interview.
"Asian economies will contribute something like 50 percent of
the growth of global GDP in the next century," said Kaji who is
visiting India at the invitation of the finance minister Manmohan
Singh.
Singh is the architect of India's market-oriented economic
reforms which have dismantled decades of socialist policies.
Kaji had been scheduled to address bankers in India's
commercial capital later yesterday but the speech was canceled
because of seven days of state mourning following Monday's death
of former prime minister Morarji Desai.
Kaji said East Asian economies would be the major contributors
to the growth and may alone contribute 40 percent of the increase
in GDP.
"I expect East Asia to continue to grow at fairly high
levels," Kaji said. He said east Asia was currently growing at an
average 7-8 percent per annum.
"But a number of fast-growing economies in east Asia have a
much higher growth rate, including into the double digits," he
said.
The World Bank official said India needed to accelerate its
reform program through the active participation of all its states
in the reform process.
"In China one sees provinces pushing against limits which
Beijing sets," Kaji said commending China's success in
implementing its reforms.
Reform
Bankers and analysts say the Indian reform program, which was
launched in mid-1991, is limited mainly to major cities.
They say despite the lifting of controls and liberalization
lower level bureaucrats still retain control in several areas.
"If one can maintain this momentum of reform and translate
what we're seeing today to a more far reaching program, where
benefits start permeating more broadly, India could become a very
powerful economic force globally," Kaji said.
He said East Asian economies maintained strict macro economic
fundamentals, invested in human resources and agriculture and
were not afraid to withdraw if decisions went wrong.
"The success of East Asia is that they maintained macro
economic fundamentals strictly and boldly through good times and
bad. They never wavered," he said.
He said their outlook had an outward orientation which forced
local companies to be globally competitive.
Kaji said India needed to reform its agriculture sector and
invest more in health and education for a stronger growth.