Economic performance and policies in the ESCAP region: 1990-1991

Abstract

Overall economic performance in the ESCAP region remained strong in 1990-1991 in spite of a number of domestic constraints and a deterioration in the external sector. The average rate of growth for the developing economics of the region is estimated at 6.2 per cent in 1991, marginally higher than the 6.1 per cent achieved in 1990. Economic growth in the ESCAP region reached a high point in 1988, when a 9.4 per cent average rate of growth was achieved by the region’s developing economies. Since 1989 rates of growth have moderated from the hectic pace of expansion experienced by many countries during the period 1937-1988. The big drop in the average rate of growth in the region by almost 4 percentage points in 1939 was due mainly to sharp de-celeration in growth rates in China, Hong Kong and the Republic of Korea, as well as in India whose growth rate in the previous year had been pushed up beyond 10.0 per cent by unprecedented growth in its agricultural sector.