"'Asia-Pacific community' has once again become a heated topic since the Eighth Annual Asian Security Summit was held from May 29 to 31 in Singapore. The Asia-Pacific community is depicted with an air of idealism, and members on the Asia-Pacific rim are alive with a long-term desire to capture large shares on global economy. But the Asia-Pacific transformation process is bound to be very complex and difficult.

Singapore, Thailand and a few other Asian nations were not so enthusiastic with the Asia-Pacific community concept when it was first announced as they all had the fear of marginalization in their future regional framework. The traditional and non-traditional security issues are very complicated and mutually interwoven. Climate change, fuel energy and food security have been turned into major topics in international relations, and the spread of terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the rampant piracy also called for multi-faceted coordinated responses."

"Under the Indira Awas Yojana, the Indian government has built more than six million homes for rural poor. And now, President Patil has announced the Rajiv Awas Yojana, which aims to build a 'slum free' India for the 62 million people living in shanties in the nation's cities. All these schemes come at a steep price. The government's revenue deficit has shot up to 4.4 percent of GDP against an estimated 1.0 percent -- a four-fold increase.

But what about the poor in India, the target of all this largesse? Are the country's 1.2 billion people truly moving towards economic equity? Already, 32.3 percent of the urban population and 43.3 percent of the rural population in South Asia is poor, that is, living at or below the poverty benchmark of 1.25 dollars (less than 60 rupees) a day. In urban areas in South Asia, poverty levels have gone up by as much as 4.4 percentage points -- the highest in the developing world."

"It has long been argued that some resource-reliant regions in China are met with the 'Resource Curse,' a phenomenon also known as the paradox of plenty. But mysteriously the regions and places rich in natural resources have lagged behind in economic growth and revenues. These regions are tangled up in an economic curse of abundance. The idea that natural resources might be more an economic curse than a blessing began to emerge in the 1980s.

To shake off the 'Curse,' we must bear in mind the following points: First and foremost, we must learn how to extract the underground treasures in a rational way, and meanwhile, avoid overexploiting the natural resources. On top of that, the effective measures taken to break the 'Resource Curse' might also be found in a resource fund, which is established in a bid to avoid ups and downs in local economies as a result of fluctuations in resource prices."

"Most of the Philippines' weaknesses are in the so-called social indices brought about by the low level of economy, jobs, markets, savings, infrastructure, health, education and environment. The weakness of social indices is a manifestation of the imbalance between our big population and the low revenue collection, which makes it difficult for government to carry out its basic obligations diligently.

Additionally, there are 'inefficiencies' or 'leaks' that need to be addressed to ensure that the precious revenues collected are spent well. The Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OEDC) finds the Philippines as one of the best in corporate governance in Asia. With the active role of the private sector in working with government agencies to improve processes in certain key agencies -- the Philippines is on its way to competitiveness recovery."

"Within Asia, many countries are reporting salary freezes, downsizing, and other cost-cutting measures in line with global trends. Although some countries such as still expect payroll budgets to increase -- by 5 percent in the cases of China and Malaysia -- this is much lower than the 12 percent or more the previous year. This is despite the fact that Asian economies are performing better than those in other regions.

One of the top employee concerns in Thailand is job security and layoffs, which are slightly higher than in the rest of Asia. Companies should understand how to balance cost reduction and impacts on employee relations. For instance, freezing promotions has a relatively small cost-saving impact but affects morale greatly. Meanwhile, lay-offs are easy to implement and offer immediate cost-saving benefits but the impact on employee relations will last a long time."

"When the 1,800-km Kunming-Bangkok Road to link China with countries of the Mekong River region opened last year, it was thought international trade would boom. It was believed the road would serve as a corridor to enable the barter of Chinese vegetables for oil from Thailand. But bottlenecks lie in complex administrative procedures.

Trade procedures have been expensive. Traders have complained about the high costs and delays in processing exports and imports. Development levels differed across the GMS countries, and regulations and work processes lacked uniformity. GMS countries really need more dialog to build good software for the economic corridors. IT technologies are also needed in customs procedures to facilitate efficient overland transit between GMS countries."

"Vietnam plans to expand its rubber plantations by almost 40 percent by 2015 and boost export earnings in a project worth about 1.7 billion dollars, the government said. Rubber is now a relatively small-scale export product for Vietnam but under the plan about 70,000 hectares of new rubber trees will be planted by next year, bringing the total area under cultivation to 650,000 hectares.

The plan will focus on five parts of the country, stretching from the southeast to northwest, and requires total investment of $1.7 billion dollars. Researchers have predicted the area of land dedicated to rubber and other farming systems in the region could more than double or triple by 2050. This could result in consequences including a drying out of the region's water systems, and an increased risk of landslides through erosion."

"The Asia-Pacific region will account for more than one-third of the global airline losses this year, which is likely to touch a whopping $9billion, due to recession impacting industry's bottom line. According to the International Air Transport Association, Asia-Pacific carriers will post the largest losses at $3.3 billion as the region's largest market Japan is in deep recession, while the global airlines will lose $9 billion this year.

The growth markets of China and India are delivering major losses as export-driven demand slows. This is a slightly better performance than the $3.9 billion that the region's carriers lost in 2008. Passenger demand worldwide is expected to contract by 8 percent to 2.06 billion travelers compared with 2.24 billion in 2008."

"Indonesia's commercial banks are revising up their lending growth targets this year due to improving market sentiment in the past months, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said on Monday. Bank loans account for major share of corporate debt financing in Southeast Asia's biggest economy as unlike in many other countries, the domestic corporate bond market remains largely insignificant.

Indonesian bonds, stocks and the rupiah currency have rallied in recent months amid improving sentiment on emerging market assets and relative political stability during an election year. Improving commodity prices on the global market have also helped bolster Indonesia's economic outlook. The International Monetary Fund recently revised up its 2009 economic growth forecast for Indonesia to 3-4 percent from 2.5 percent previously."

"Vietnam's central bank said bad debt was on the rise, accounting for about 2.6 percent of all outstanding loans in the country's banking system. Bad debt in Vietnam's banking system was estimated at 3.5 percent last year, up from 2 percent in 2007, and the central bank had expected a 'challenging' 2009 as both savings and investment were expected to slow amid the economic slump.

The central bank said one of the reasons for the increase in non-performing debt was because banks were more compliant in reassessing debt quality according to new regulations. Loans to the property sector including mortgages at the end of April fell 12 percent from the end of 2008 to $8.25 billion, accounting for 10.5 percent of all outstanding loans."

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