"Since PRC's economic stimulus plans concentrate mainly on capital-intensive industries rather than labor-intensive ones, the prospect of an 'economic recovery without employment' is looming large. This makes unemployment a problem that may not be relieved through economic growth. Unemployment will directly lead to reduced consumption, and persistent unemployment will increasingly drag the economy down.

The rise in the rate of unemployment will dent people's incomes and dampen their confidence to spend, making consumption decline. Some optimism is spreading among the people because of the economic stimulus plans, but persistent unemployment, which may cause a decline in income, slump in consumption as well as many social problems, might reverse the current overly upbeat mood."

"There are about 90 million illiterate people in Bangladesh. Some vital national programs, such as population control and family planning, increased food production, etc. are greatly hindered due to a lack of participation by the general masses who lack an education.

To boost manpower it is essential to gear up primary education and organize adult education on a massive scale. It has been proved that sporadic efforts by voluntary organizations are not sufficient to educate 90 million illiterates. Nationwide planning and the mobilization of resources, both financial and material, are essential for such a gigantic endeavor."

"The Pakistan government needs to assist the poor to meet their basic needs and engage youth in productive work. Development institutions have learnt through experience that subsidies, more often than not, don't reach the intended beneficiaries. In countries such as Pakistan, where the state is weak, there are enormous leakages in such programs. Cash transfers need to be better monitored.

The government has also indicated its willingness to commit resources to public works programs in both rural and urban areas in order to provide temporary relief to the urban unemployed. However, the real solution to the poverty problem lies in getting the poor engaged productively in the economy as wage earners and that will need both a high rate of GDP growth as well as the development of labor-intensive sectors of the economy."

"The Indian government is talking of bringing in a National Food Security Bill, whereby every family below the poverty line (BPL) will be entitled to 25kg of grains per month at a rate of Rs3 (6 cents) a kg. This is a bold step toward the right to food for the poor. The key challenge is not just passing the bill, but making sure it is implemented in a manner by which this subsidized food reaches the needy.

If the government uses the public distribution system (PDS), there is no way that hunger will go away from this land even in the next 10 years or so. The reason is that the existing PDS, with a network of at least 400,000 fair price shops, suffers from large leakages. There is also a problem in defining and identifying a BPL family."

"An expansion of Indonesia's crude production, starting with a rapid increase in investment for exploration and the speedier development of new discoveries, is critical. More investment is also required to explore and develop the country's gas potential, given the importance of continued growth in LNG exports and the domestic demand for cleaner fuel.

An expansion of domestic refinery capacity, particularly if integrated with petrochemical facilities and combined with growth in indigenous crude production, will improve fuel economics and supply security, and improve the country's trade balance. However, the current low oil price environment makes it less attractive for companies to expand production capacity and to risk their cash in exploring for new oil and gas prospects."

"Tens of thousands of mobile phone users in Bangladesh's flood and cyclone-prone areas will now receive advance warning of an impending natural disaster through an alert on their cell phones, a government official says. In a bid to minimize loss of life and damage to property, Bangladeshi authorities have signed an agreement with two mobile operators in the country to provide disaster early warning alerts to subscribers.

The firms will send instant messages to their subscribers in two of the most vulnerable areas, the flood-prone north-central Shirajganj district and cyclone-prone Cox's Bazar district on the coast. The messages would not be the usual SMS format, but would flash automatically on the screen of mobile phone sets, instead of going to message boxes."

"PRC plans to build seven wind power bases with a minimum capacity of 10 gigawatts (gW) each by 2020, in a move to dramatically increase the use of the clean energy. Once completed, the seven bases will have a combined capacity of around 120 gW, when the country's total power capacity is projected to be 1,500 gW.

Construction of these bases would require an investment of around 1 trillion yuan ($146.38 billion). China's wind energy resources are mainly located in the northern regions and the coastal areas. Besides onshore wind power, which has seen rapid growth in China, the country has also started to develop offshore wind power projects. China's wind power sector has witnessed 100 percent annual growth in the past three years."

"The Indonesian forestry industry could see up to Rp 15 trillion ($1.5 billion) in investments this year, of which Rp 6.1 trillion has already been realized, a senior Forestry Ministry official said. The logs from the production forests would feed wood-related industries, in the form of plywood, sawn timber and wood chips, and supply bio-energy plants for making biomass, in the form of wood pellets.

The Forestry Ministry would also approve a number of investments to develop production forests for food, in the form of sago, breadfruit and sap trees. The wood-related industrial sector had increased in the last two years, after the government decided to reform its investment regulations in the forestry sector."

"Thailand's sagging economy requires state economic stimulus measures to recover during the next one and a half years, according to a top Thai banker. The gross domestic product (GDP) for this year is set to shrink 3 percent as earlier projected. At the same time, it is believed the ongoing political conflicts would not worsen the current economic deterioration. However, the government must implement its economic stimulus measures to shore up the ailing economy.

The economy is expected to revive in the fourth quarter this year, boosted by the state-initiated economic stimulus scheme. Regarding the government's plan to issue new savings bonds, he said the measure will not affect short-term interest offered by commercial banks since the bond issue provides the public with another choice for long-term investment."

"Sri Lanka's economic recovery will be driven largely by domestic reconstruction flowing from an end of a three decade long war with some support from an external pick up, a regional economist said. Sri Lanka has cut policy rates from a penal 19.0 percent to 11.50 percent so far in 2009, and government security yields have plummeted, though bank lending rates are falling at a slower pace.

Sri Lanka's economic growth slowed to 1.5 percent in the first quarter, as a collapse in global demand buffeted exports and domestic interest rates rocketed in the last quarter of 2008 to counter a balance of payments crisis."

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