East Asia facing a new wave of challenges: WB

The economic success witnessed in East Asian countries during the past 15 years is now creating a new wave of challenges like inequality, corruption, and environmental degradation, World Bank said in a report.

The report titled 'An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Growth', said almost 600 million East Asians are still trying to live on less than 2 dollar per day. Inequality in the region has risen, not just in income levels but in schooling, attainment and access to basic services.

Poorer regions and rural areas are falling further behind their urban counterparts and ethnic minorities are not participating in growth, it said.

However, according to the report, 50 million East Asians left the ranks of the poor in the last five years alone and after Vietnam reaches middle income status, which could happen by 2010, fewer than 5 per cent of East Asians will be living in a low income country.

"As a result of the growth spurred by global and regional integration, unprecedented economic progress has been made in east Asia," said World Bank Chief Economist for the East Asia Pacific region, Homi Kharas said.

"In a few years, almost everyone in developing East Asia will be living in a middle-income country. This is very good news but the development challenges at the middle-income level are considerably more complex," he said.

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