Asia’s regional experts are quite excited
about the continued robust growth of the Asian economy as the economic gravity
has moved from the West to the East but warned of several political and
economic downside risks that could lead many countries in the region into the
middle-income trap.
Bank
DBS Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta and chief economist David Carbon
briefed the around 500 businesspeople and analysts attending the DBS Asian
Insights Conference here on Friday on how the rising power of Asian giants
(notably China, India and Indonesia) would change the structure of the global
economy.
Even
after the growth in China now has declined to about 7.6 percent and the
expansion in India and Indonesia has also moderated Asia (excluding Japan)
would still put three Eurozoes (in economic size) on the global economic map
within 25 years, Carbon noted at the first plenary session on Asian giants.
“Asia
(excluding Japan) with a combined gross domestic product of US$16 trillion, or
about similar to the US economy will continue to be the main locomotive of the
world economy,” Carbon added.
However,
the four panelists at the session warned that political divisiveness, indequate
pace of reform measures and inequality in income distribution and asset
ownership could stifle the growth and lead Asian major economies into a
middle-income trap.
Two of
the paneliss, Jusuf Wanandi, co-chair of the Pacific Economic Cooperation
Council (PECC), and Tommy Koh, Singapore’s Ambassador at Large, cited the
tensions between China, now the world’s second largest economy, and its
neighbors over South China Sea as a major political downside risk to
sustainable growth in the region.
“Indonesia
has been enjoying good relations with China and our bilateral economic ties
have been quite strong, but China seems to have been more assertive now with
its rising power,” Wanandi said.
“How
China with its rising economic power will behave towards its neighbors will
impact on the future economic growth and integration in the egion,” Koh pointed
out.
The two
other panelists, Duvvuri Subbarao, former governor of the Reserve of India, and
Li Mingjiang, coordinator of the China Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Relations pointed to the need for a continued high pace of
structural reform in Asia, otherwise many major economies in the region would
remain trapped in the middle-income club.
Subbarao
and Mingjiang shared the views that Asian high growth would be sustainable only
if reform and infrastructure deveopment would be accelerated and clean
governance strengthened.
The
plenary session was supposed to focus on the economic issues related to the
Asian giants but participants at the meeting and journalists at a later news
conference bombarded Wanandi with questions about the upcoming presidential
elections in Indonesia and how the outcome would impact on future economic
policies.
“To be
honest with you I am a partisan supporter of Jokowi (presidential candidate
Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo), so please be critical on what I said. But the reality is
I don’t want authoritarian rule back in my country,” Wanandi asserted.
He said
the development concepts of both candidates are strikingly different. While
presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto aspires to restore authoritarian rule
as that under Soeharto, Jokowi has strongly been committed to strengthening the
democracy process.
“The
most pressing problem now is how to prevent cheating in the voting, without
which Prabowo will never win,” Wanandi added.
Vincent
Lingga
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
in Singapore since 1994.
No comments:
Post a Comment