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East Asia & Pacific is facing some great development challenges today: urbanization, protection of the environment, the need to find renewable energy sources and many others. This site wants to create a conversation around those important issues. More »

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World Bank economists for East Asia and Pacific take your questions on an online chat November 2

Submitted by Claudia Gabarain on Mon, 2010-11-01 21:48

A couple of weeks ago the Bank released its half-yearly economic assessment of developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. The report confirmed the robust recovery of the region's economies overall, but flagged a number of emerging risks, particularly around the return of large capital inflows and appreciating currencies.

The Chief Economist for the region, Vikram Nehru, and the Lead Economist Ivailo Izvorski will be live online in just a few hours, November 2 at 10 a.m. EST (14:00 GMT and 10:00 p.m. Beijing time) to answer your questions on the issues presented in the report. It's always better to submit a question in advance to have a better chance of having it answered, so do send your questions --and/or follow the live chat-- here.

Independent Advisory Group makes 9th visit to Nam Theun 2

Submitted by Victoria Minoian on Wed, 2009-11-25 14:08
The International Advisory Group in action at Ban Sop On, one of the resettled villages at Nakai Plateau.

Over the last two weeks the Nam Theun 2 project received the 9th visit of the International Advisory Group (IAG), one of the  Independent Assessment bodies assigned to the project.

The winds of change are blowing in Malaysia

Submitted by Philip Schellekens on Wed, 2009-11-18 02:26

The winds of change are blowing in Malaysia, as the government is taking on an ambitious agenda of structural reform. The objective is to climb up the income ladder and join the league of high-income economies. This is a difficult challenge – one which not many countries have successfully met in the post-war period.

Against this backdrop, the World Bank’s launch of a new report on the Malaysian economy (full disclosure: I lead the team who authors the report) is timely. The Malaysia Economic Monitor, which will be published twice a year, aims to provide context to the challenges facing Malaysia and serves as a platform for discussion and the sharing of knowledge.

Your questions about East Asia and Pacific's rebound from the crisis, answered by World Bank economists

Submitted by Claudia Gabarain on Mon, 2009-11-16 00:01

Almost like an audience-customized appendix to the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Update November 2009, the live online chat held last Thursday by the regional Chief Economist, Vikram Nehru, and the lead author of the report, Ivailo Izvorski, answered a good number of questions in detail.

From diversifying Cambodia's economy to the right moment to suspend governments' stimulus packages, Vikram and Ivailo also touched on the effect of a weak US dollar in East Asian economies, on the challenges to generate domestic growth in export-dependent economies, and on the risks of inflation and asset price bubbles in the region, among others. Take a look at the transcript.

Submit questions on East Asian and Pacific economy for Nov. 12 online chat

Submitted by James I Davison on Tue, 2009-11-10 13:37

The World Bank’s latest economic assessment of developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region, released a week ago, came to some interesting conclusions and attempted to answer a lot of questions on a complex subject. Notably, the report’s authors pointed to the major role China has played in the region’s swift rebound from the crisis.

Later this week, two World Bank economists will be answering your questions about the report in a live online chat. On Thursday, Nov. 12, at 10:00 a.m. Washington DC time (15:00 GMT or 11:00 p.m. Beijing time), join Ivailo Izvorski, lead economist and author of the report, and Vikram Nehru, Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region to send questions and read their answers. You’re strongly encouraged to submit your questions in advance.

In Thailand, finding the way back into growth: Step 1, switch the supply chains back on

Submitted by Frederico Gil Sander on Wed, 2009-11-04 13:35

As part of its regular monitoring of the corporate sector in Southeast Asia, the World Bank economic team I am part of in Thailand has been working on a short case study of supply chains of Japanese multinational companies (MNCs) in the electrical and electronics (E&E) industry. We wanted to hear directly from firms about how the crisis affected them, how they were able to adjust so quickly to the drop in demand, what the rebound looked like, and what were the prospects going forward to upgrade along the value chain. I have learned a great deal from these interviews, and have become convinced that supply chains are central to understanding the current crisis in Thailand and East Asia more generally.

Some facts: the crisis had a disproportionate impact on manufacturing. In Thailand, manufacturing represents about 40 percent of GDP, but contractions in manufacturing value added have accounted for about 75 percent of the contraction of headline GDP. Within manufacturing, the auto and E&E industries account for the bulk of the contraction. Most of the output in those industries is exported, and more than three-fourths of the decline in Thai exports during the crisis was due to falls in shipments from the auto and E&E industries. My conclusion is that the magnitude of the crisis in Thailand has been driven primarily by these two industries.

Doing Business 2010: Indonesia, China and the Philippines among countries noted for at least one reform

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-09-09 17:02

Earlier today, the World Bank released its annual Doing Business report, which tracks business regulation reforms and ranks emerging economies on the “ease of doing business.” In East Asia and Pacific, 71 percent of the countries have undertaken at least one positive reform – with Indonesia being the region’s most active reformer, according to the report (pdf). Among other things, Indonesia cut the time required to start a business and the number of days to transfer a property.

Improving investment climate important to boost economic growth in Thailand

Submitted by Xubei Luo on Wed, 2009-08-19 11:21

The investment climate is the fundamental socio-economic framework in which firms operate – the macroeconomic and trade policies they face, the labor and financial markets in which they recruit and raise money, the available infrastructure and imposed regulations, as well as all other areas of public policy impacting on private business.

In Thailand, the uncertain political situation since 2006 has negatively affected the country’s economy. The Productivity and Investment Climate Survey, which was fielded in 2007 at a time of great political instability and policy uncertainty, clearly reflected the pessimistic views of business managers. One interesting finding of the recently released Thailand Investment Climate Assessment Update is that instability and economic policy uncertainty became major issues – firms that perceived it a major or severe obstacle doubled from one-third in 2004 to two-thirds in 2007.

Internet usage in China jumps to 338 million people, latest data show

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-07-22 17:59

Internet usage in China continues to grow, and the latest figures released by the Chinese government’s Web research organization show that the total number of online users, at 338 million, surpasses the population of the United States. The impressive statistics – which reflect a 13.4 percent jump from 2008 – had a number of blogs and news sites buzzing late last week. The full report is available in Chinese here (pdf), and WSJ’s China Journal blog has a nice roundup of the findings in English here.

The growth in China – and the rest of East Asia and the world for that matter – is nothing new. Last year, we shared 2008 comScore statistics showing Asia’s internet audience growing faster than all other regions worldwide. And according to more recent information from comScore, the Asia-Pacific region has the highest global share of internet users, at 41 percent (although it’s important to note that the penetration rate of the region is only around 17 percent of the population – well below most other regions – according to this web stats site).

We’ve seen that increased connectivity through mobile phones and the internet may lead to improved economic growth, job creation and good governance, as well as other activities like mobile banking. And as more people, particularly in developing countries, get connected, this growth trend clearly seems to be a positive one.

Image credit: TimYang.net at Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Convenient solutions to an inconvenient truth: How old-fashioned conservation helps deal with climate change

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Tue, 2009-07-14 13:13

So much is being written about climate change. The heat is on, so to speak, to find new solutions to increasingly dire predictions from ever more detailed data and refined models. Many conservationists are setting great store by the promise afforded by RED (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation) and REDD (add Degradation). It is only a few more months before we learn whether the leaders of the world reach agreement of whether to move forward and unlock the money which could – forest governance permitting – cause a major boost to the funding and rationale for forest conservation.

Meanwhile, a new World Bank report has revealed that conservationists have actually been doing climate change projects all along; they just hadn’t realized it. New technological fixes aren’t essential to taking positive action.