Foreword

The swift expansion of developing Asia is probably the most significant structural change in the world economy of the twenty-first century. Some economies in this region - including Japan, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan Province of China - had already undergone a rapid growth process in the second half of the twentieth century. Over the past decade, the economies of China and other developing nations of Asia have also expanded rapidly and turned this region into the main growth pole of the world economy. Even amid the global financial and economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, China and most other developing Asian economies continued to post positive growth, whereas the rest of the world economy was in recession. For the remainder of this second decade of the twenty-first century, developing Asia will probably continue to be the growth engine of the world, in a context of weak growth prospects for the developed countries.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development