"As Asia rebounds from the economic crisis and resumes rapid economic growth, a big question will be whether Asia will lead the world in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Progress on the MDGs can be described as uneven. First, the good news: since 1990 Asia has succeeded in reducing poverty by an aggregate of some 500 million people. Asia has also made good progress on education, particularly on enrollments, and quite noteworthy is the increase in girl's enrollments.

Now for the bad. Much less progress has been made on health indicators such as maternal mortality, as well as on sanitation and environmental goals. In many countries in Asia, well organized health systems, especially in rural areas, do not exist. Basic sanitation has also not been accorded the highest priority in many parts of Asia."

"A bubble may be growing in the Indian microfinance sector with annual growth rates of near 100 percent. Microfinance organizations charge upwards of 24 percent interest. With growth, costs should come down and borrowers should benefit. The more professional microfinance organizations have formed an association which has sought to self-regulate the sector by seeking to curb multiple lending and bringing transparency in lending rates, but its success will take time.

Since high investor returns are justified on the need to secure continuous funding, and since microfinance has been found to be viable, attention should really turn to making available cheaper funds to the better run institutions so that they can keep up the good work without having to maximize profits. One solution is to issue banking licenses to the best run institutions so that they can access cheap funds."

"The cash-strapped Philippines government is struggling with massive loans tied to climate change mitigation efforts after storms struck the country late last year, officials said. Multilateral lending institutions, as well as the United Nations and foreign governments, lent or granted the Philippines $1.09 billion to address disasters blamed on climate change, according to data.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said funds to help the Philippines get back on its feet should come in the form of grants and not loans tied to certain conditions. The controversy over the loans comes as the Philippines is grappling with its cash position, with President Benigno Aquino admitting that last year's typhoons had nearly depleted the country's disaster fund of $44 million."

"Indonesia's economy grew at a better-than-expected 6.2 percent in the second quarter of 2010 from the same period a year ago, thanks to strong investment, exports and steady household spending, fueling predictions that more than 6 percent growth can be achieved for the year. Cumulatively, the country's economy grew 5.9 percent in the first half from the same period last year, accelerating from a 4.2 percent pace in 2009.

The latest growth figure exceeded analysts' forecasts of 6 percent, and was the highest figure since the 6.25 percent posted in the third quarter of 2008, thanks mainly to strong domestic consumption and exports. The government had estimated 5.8 percent growth in the second quarter, a more conservative figure than the central bank's estimate of 6 percent. A breakdown of the data showed strong growth in investment and consumption. Indonesia's household spending remained strong, with car sales up 78 percent to a total of 196,132 units in the second quarter from a year ago."

"Kazakhstan's oil boom has drawn tens of thousands of foreign oil workers and managers, as well as many professionals from around Kazakhstan, to the provincial capital of Atyrau. Even after the decade-long oil boom that has brought Kazakhstan a measure of prosperity and an emergent middle class, development in the country remains uneven, with a few pockets of affluence distracting attention from the large swaths of the country that remain poor and underdeveloped.

Most residents don't blame the oil companies, but the government, for the slow pace of urban development in Atyrau. Foreign oil companies carry out many development programs, including bringing gas and water to towns around the region, and sponsoring community development projects in some of the poorest areas. But there is a widespread perception that government officials siphon money from oil revenues, because the government does not publicly report how much money it makes from oil exports."

"New Delhi's proposal to establish a $10-billion sovereign wealth fund (SWF) should be treated with caution. The necessary preconditions for setting up a SWF are squarely lacking in India. Besides, the purported objectives of the fund to pursue strategic investment opportunities abroad are highly debatable. SWFs help in diversifying and improving the return on a country's foreign exchange reserves or commodity revenues.

Non-commodity SWFs are largely funded by transferring assets from official foreign exchange reserves, although some are based on fiscal surpluses, proceeds from the sale of state-owned enterprises to the private sector, and direct transfers from the state budgetary resources. Unlike China and other East Asian countries, which have established such funds on sustained current account surpluses, India has been running persistent current account deficits. Its current account deficit touched $29.8 billion in fiscal 2009 as against $15.7 billion in fiscal 2007."

"Improvements in labor productivity in the garment industry are making Cambodia competitive among developing countries, according to leading economists. The Cambodian garment sector was hit hard by the global financial crisis. Demand dropped, but the recovery was faster than in other countries.

Experts partly attributed the quick recovery to Cambodia's smaller size, saying that Cambodia had about 300 factories, compared with Bangladesh's 4,000 or more plants. Cambodia's garment exports declined about 16 percent year on year from 2008 to 2009, but rose over 10 percent to $1.33 billion for the first half of 2010, from $1.21 billion for 2009, according to data."

"The China Banking Regulatory Commission has asked banks to start testing the quality of their property loans under various stress situations. A record rise in housing prices in 70 cities compelled the government to impose tough measures in April to cool down the property market. With property loans accounting for nearly 10 percent of their total lending, banks have to factor in the possibility of housing market crash in their assessments.

Previous stress tests on property loans have shown banks could withstand up to a 30-percent drop in housing prices. Given that housing prices in major cities have not yet plateaued, the previous stress tests should have been robust enough to prove the health of banks."

"Prime Minister Hasina said private entrepreneurs should be allowed to invest in Bangladesh's ailing power and energy sectors. She has asked power and energy officials to intensify the drive for implementing power and energy projects on time. The demand for electricity and natural gas is increasing day by day but the output has not increased in the past seven years.

The government is trying its best to boost power and gas supply across the country, she said. It has already finalized a road-map to generate around 9,426 megawatts of electricity by 2015. The prime minister underscored the necessity to ease the mounting energy crunch in the port city Chittagong. She stressed for the increased use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and the diversifying of fuel."

"While Turkmenistan has made significant improvements to its healthcare system by building modern hospital facilities, patients and doctors say overall care levels still leave a lot to be desired. The creaking health system was allowed, even helped to disintegrate under the late president Saparmurat Niazov.

The last few years have seen new general hospitals, cancer clinics and ear, nose and throat centers appear. Hundreds of millions of US dollars have been allocated to build large mother-and-child clinics in every province of Turkmenistan, and plans have been approved for a major ophthalmological center in the capital Ashgabat. But despite improvements to infrastructure, residents say health service provision remains poor."

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