Streaming Media

Media Type

Keynote Address

Publication Date

11-26-2004

Description

It is now widely accepted that the Asian economies have done extremely well in terms of economic growth and poverty reduction during the last three to four decades or so despite the crisis of 1997. Three decades ago, China was among the World’s poorest countries with 80 percent of the population having incomes less than US$1 per day and only a third of all adults able to read or write. By 2000 the proportion of the poor (income less than US$1 per day) had declined to around 16 percent. Korea and Pakistan had identical per capita incomes of $100 in 1960. Korea has now graduated as an OECD country and reached per capita income of approximately $10,000 while we haven’t even crossed the threshold of $1,000. Asia’s share in World GDP (at PPP) has risen from 24 percent in 1973 to almost 40 percent in 2003. Foreign currency reserves of Asian Central banks now account for 70 percent of the World currency reserves and financed more than half of the current account deficit of the United States in 2003.

Notes

Keynote Address at the 12th General Council and General Body Meeting of the Asia Oceania Tax Consultants Association held at Karachi on November 26, 2004. 2 Most of the discussion in this paper is focused on Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines. Other Asean Countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are not covered.

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