BEIJING (AFP) — East Asian poverty has dropped dramatically but rural areas risk being left behind threatening a widening income gap to urban regions, the World Bank said Thursday.
The number of people living on less than two dollars per day had fallen below 500 million, with the proportion of the East Asian population in that category down from 69 percent in 1990 to 27 percent today, the bank said.
"East Asia's rapid growth has been primarily responsible for its remarkable success in lowering poverty," World Bank economist Vikram Nehru said in a statement accompanying its half-yearly regional analysis.
"Maintaining this growth remains key and to this end, continued improvements in the investment climate, financial systems, public service delivery, and education and innovation systems remain priorities in much of the region."
But new problems are emerging because different sections of East Asian society are becoming richer at uneven rates, leading to growing income disparities, the bank warned.
"It is often the case that lower income groups experience slower income growth than higher income ones, resulting in widening income inequality," the analysis said.
"Concerns about a widening urban-rural income divide are one reason why governments in countries like China are renewing their focus on rural and agricultural development policies," it added.
China has taken a number of steps since early this decade to lift rural incomes, including abolishing an agricultural tax that had existed, in one form or another, for millennia.
East Asia's economies are likely to grow by 8.4 percent this year, followed by 8.2 percent growth in 2008, the World Bank said in its analysis.
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