U.N. warns Asia of perils of rapid growth
U.N. warns Asia of perils of rapid growth
BANGKOK (Reuter): A senior United Nations official said
yesterday the dynamic economies of the Asia-Pacific region faced
equally fast-growing social problems, many of them spinoffs of
their success.
"I think we all know that the region has earned a reputation
as the economically most dynamic region in the world," Adrianus
Mooy of Indonesia, executive secretary of the Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
But the rapid growth had also brought problems, Mooy told a
news conference to present ESCAP's annual survey of the region.
"Despite the fast pace of economic growth in the region, the
region remains beset with many social problems," he said. "These
are, among others, poverty, environmental degradation and a low
level of human resource development."
He said the economies of ESCAP developing countries grew by an
estimated 7.7 percent in 1994, up from 7.2 percent in 1993. The
figures are based on data from 21 developing economies
representing 95 percent of the region's population.
According to the survey, three quarters of the world's poor
people live in the ESCAP region, which comprises 49 member
nations and 10 associate members.
Mooy said the 1995 ESCAP survey focused on social security as
a protection against a series of vulnerabilities that could
generate or worsen poverty and deprivation.
"In the survey we noticed a wide variety of programs have been
undertaken by the governments with defined benefits, but the
problem that we notice is that most of these programs give
benefit only to the organized sector," he said.
"They have not been able to reach the poor and more vulnerable
segments of the population."
Mooy said another concern was caring for the elderly, because
traditional family-based support systems had weakened along with
a rapid rise in the elderly population, industrialization and
urbanization.
"That means there is a need for more reliance on the formal
social security systems," he said.
"The problem here is financial viability -- how to undertake
these programs without creating unnecessary burdens in the form
of taxation."
Mooy said the region faced other challenges as a result of
rapid growth.
"Every success will also bring about new challenges," Mooy
said. "I used to call these challenges the problems of success.
They are different from the problem of failures."
He said the survey showed governments must still fine-tune
their economic policies to ensure macroeconomic stability while
they sustain or strengthen their growth.
Governments must also work on getting rid of infrastructure
bottlenecks and cope with changes in the international trade
regime and the increasing globalization of financial markets.