Asia's Developing Future

Blockchain technology may be used to finance local renewable-energy projects. The technology, which basically acts as an electronic ledger, allows transactions to be carried out between parties without interference by third parties like banks. It creates trust as it assures investors that all recorded transactions are secure because the data are stored in multiple blocks and therefore difficult to...

If you have a good story, you can change the world. If your story makes people laugh, you have an even better chance at success. That’s the message of Jack Sim, who decided after a thriving business career to take on the issue of global sanitation. Expanding the use of toilets would help stop diseases spread by people defecating in the open. More toilets would also lead to more women going to scho...

Asia and the Pacific need to ensure not only that more people have access to financial products and services but also that the poor can wield them to build wealth. While the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC broadly recognizes that financial inclusion is key to fighting poverty and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, more needs to be done to improve financial inclusion. Read the tra...

The Republic of Korea could improve its citizens’ overall well-being by tackling inequality in the workforce that has left women falling behind their male counterparts. A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development points out that on many measures the country remains well behind other OECD countries when it comes to the treatment of women in the workforce. Randall Jones, h...

To be or not to be? That is the question confronting Malaysia’s state-linked companies. Should the government sell its stake in them as they are embroiled in controversy after controversy? The issue becomes starker because the country’s government-linked firms account for about half the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index, and they constitute 7 out of the top-10 listed firms in 2018. Read the t...

The fast growth of a high-speed rail network in the People’s Republic of China has widened market access and boosted incomes. Expanding access to high-speed rail even further would help solve some of the country’s toughest problems. Extending the network and improving access to it would benefit poorer parts of the country. The high-speed rail system has already helped offset some of the sharp divi...

Small and medium-sized businesses in the Republic of Korea lag well behind their bigger counterparts in productivity, and the gap is getting wider. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development suggested that the problems for SMEs are deeply entrenched. Randall Jones, head of the OECD’s Japan and Korea desk, explained the issues facing Korean SMEs at an event hosted...

The drop from peak oil prices is testing Azerbaijan’s economy and its people’s ability to adjust to a more modern financial system. For the decade from 2006 to 2016, few economies were as dynamic as Azerbaijan’s. Petroleum reserves brought boom times and the economy grew by 35% in the year 2006 alone. But the prosperity concealed a troubling undercurrent. When oil prices began dropping beginning i...

Big family business groups known as chaebol still dominate in the Republic of Korea, stifling the growth of other businesses and causing investors to look twice before putting money in the country. These huge diversified companies led the country’s emergence but have since become a drag on its growth. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development looked at the issue...

By 2050, half the world’s population will live in Asia and the Pacific. Each year, Asian cities’ total population increases by as many as 44 million people. In their wake are millions of tons of solid waste. The People’s Republic of China alone produces almost 150 million tons of waste every year, with the figure rising 8% to10% annually. India generates about 133,760 tons of solid waste per day,...

The Republic of Korea should hold off on increasing the minimum wage for a year or so while it considers the effect of past hikes. That’s the recommendation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Randall Jones, head of the OECD’s Japan and Korea desk, explained why at an event hosted by the Asian Development Bank Institute. Read the transcript https://bit.ly/2CJgklq About t...

Fifty years after Japan launched its high-speed railway line, there’s no denying it’s been a game-changer. Run by Japan National Railways, the shinkansen cuts travel time between historical economic centers and connects a network of cities. It’s the spine of one of the most important regional economic belt developments in the world. It’s spurred economic growth in the cities it serves and transfor...

Outsourcing may mean bigger profits for companies seeking cheaper ways to produce goods and services, but it’s not all good news for the host countries. For the countries in the South that welcome the factories of companies from the wealthier North, outsourcing comes with environmental costs. The People’s Republic of China, considered the world’s factory, is an example. Since China joined the Worl...

Financial liberalization is typically associated with bringing benefits to emerging economies—cutting red tape, boosting growth, expanding trade, and creating jobs and opportunity. Is it just what China needs as the country’s leaders grapple with how to guide it to the next level? Or would it bring with it added risks to China’s economy? And could those risks trigger a crisis? Read the transcript...

Since at least the beginning of the 1990s, economists have noted that innovation is indispensable to competitive advantage. But what about for manufacturing? Conventional wisdom has long been hostile to altering proven production methods. But this is changing. Take the example of the People’s Republic of China. Twenty-two years after the government’s 1978 economic reforms, China’s global manufactu...

Electric utilities around the world are expected to be greatly transformed by deregulation, climate change, the rise of renewable energy, new technologies, declining populations, and changing user needs. The transformation will eventually see the power grid’s integration with industries such as water, gas, transportation, among others, which ultimately could mean better service. A factor driving t...

For ambitious economies that have recently overcome historical economic obstacles and become stable and vibrant engines of growth, the question now is how to make growth sustainable and inclusive. For the People’s Republic of China and India, innovation is now the key to their economic futures. Yet the legacies of their growth present troubling issues, chiefly environmental degradation. Both econo...

Asian economies and financial systems are becoming ever more integrated, but their monitoring has not kept pace and better safeguards are needed. This is especially true for cross-border issues. Peter Morgan, co-chair of research at the Asian Development Bank Institute, says that Europe can provide a valuable guide to developing the necessary institutions in Asia. Read the transcript https://bit.l...

Solar energy is growing fast as total capacity worldwide surges with the decline of solar-panel prices. It’s cheap and it works. How to further reduce the price of solar panels has become an important topic as solar electricity’s share of the overall energy supply grows globally. Several studies have focused on manufacturing and technological developments as the main reasons behind the most recent...

Asian emerging market economies adopted a range of measures after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s to shelter themselves from economic and financial contagion. So far, those moves have succeeded. But with new challenges rising, some of the tools they turned to may need readjusting so that they don’t cause more problems than they cure. Hans Genberg, executive director of the Southeast A...

The People’s Republic of China’s integration into the global economy and East and West Germany’s reunification show the Democratic People's Republic of Korea — or the DPRK — how it might become a market economy within 20 to 25 years. Naoyuki Yoshino, dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute, told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan that the DPRK could also look to the success of other Asi...

A brewing trade war over steel is threatening to bring the world back to the economic “dark ages” when countries used trade curbs to retaliate politically against rival governments. The World Trade Organization and its members must find ways to ease tensions between rival countries and look for innovative ways to ensure global trade rules remain relevant and adaptive to the challenges of the prese...

The People’s Republic of China’s gradual shift from a currency policy pegged to the US dollar to one that tracks the movements of a range of currencies was the correct choice given the challenges, and neighbors Malaysia and Singapore were best served by reacting in a similar way. That’s the conclusion of research presented in Global Shocks and the New Global and Regional Financial Architecture, As...

Energy price shocks—negative and positive—can have a powerful economic knock-on effect, especially on food prices where food is scarce. Even though great strides have been made since 1945 in feeding Asia’s huge populations, more than 500 million people still face food insecurity. Of the world’s undernourished, almost 65% live in Asia. Food insecurity stems from the link between energy prices and f...

When India started opening its markets to international trade in the 1990s, what impact did it have on manufacturing and labor’s share of income? The answer lies in an analysis of plant-level data, which requires classifying industries as labor, human capital resource, or technology intensive. But first, what pushed India to open its doors? Read the transcript https://bit.ly/2Ofyop5 Read the worki...