UN: Asia's Poorer Countries Left Behind Trade Boom
Josephine Roque - All Headline News Staff Writer Bangkok, Thailand (AHN) - Asia-Pacific countries have not fairly benefited from growing free trade. China economically overwhelms its smaller and more destitute neighbors. "China's stunning economic growth, in so many ways an inspiration to its Asia-Pacific neighbors, is not delivering reciprocal benefits to its regional trading partners _ and is in some cases creating difficulties for them," said Kemal Dervis, a U.N. Development Program administrator, in a report. The UNDP's 2006 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report adds that free trade has also widened the gap between rich and poor within countries. "For most developing countries in the region a greater engagement with international markets has been accompanied by a rise in income inequality," it said. Greatly affected are the region's 14 poorest economies: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, East Timor, Kiribati, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Although some of these countries have experienced robust export sectors in the past years, "they have not achieved commensurate economic growth or a significant reduction in poverty," the report said. It added that these countries are simply being "out-competed and overwhelmed by exports from China."
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