A Profile of the Asian Economy

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Asia has very diverse and complicated economy with varying sectors from oil to financial services to consumer electronics. In every one it is a major player and heading into the twenty first century increasingly being seen as the major player so there would per chance no longer be a more in-depth time to determine more about investing in Asian Investment Funds.

The Asian economy is already the largest continental economy in the world. The biggest players within Asia, according to GDP, are Japan, China, India and South Korea. China has largest economy of those and has emerged as the second largest in the world (when no longer including the EU) behind the US although it is anticipated that it will soon overtake and claim top spot. Japan, for a long time Asias financial superpower is now second whilst India, in the case of purchasingcontinual, can be considered the third largest.

One of the biggest challenges facing modern Asian countries is the distribution in their wealth. In middle east despite being oil rich and having some of the highest GDPs per capita in Asia, much of the wealth remains in the hands of a minority in the upper echelons of society. Whereas, in the vast countries of India and China the size in their economies is largely based upon, but very much offset against, the size in their populations sharing as they do 2.5 billion individuals between them (over a third of the worlds total). As a result their GDP per capita stands at only 3,417 and 7,518 respectively in comparison with the regions other substantial economies of Japan (32,817) and South Korea (30,200), whilst the other a hit financial and trading nations in the South East are equivalent to those of Hong Kong and Singapore.

In Japan and South Korea nonetheless, although industry still plays major role, the economies are more developed and varied and success can also be particularly reliant on the financial and service sectors. Both countries experienced post war booms - Japan after the Second World War and South Korea after the Korean War - and are now home to some of the worlds leading multinationals, particularly in the field of consumer electronics and motor vehicles. The success of each economy followed close cooperation between government, banks and business with heavy investment and enthusiastic research into high end technology.

The would possibly of the Asian economies may seem like a quite modern invention but for much of European antiquity and up unless the nineteenth century countries equivalent to China India were the prominent economic powers in the world. Much in their success then as now depended on their plentiful natural resources, the similar resources which tempted European colonisation which in turn stunted Asian economiccontinual unless the twentieth century.

The wealth of the Middle East states is mostly commodity based with oil in certain being key to their prosperity since the its discovery in Iran in 1908. The region is home to the biggest proportion of the worlds known oil reserves and as a result relatively small Gulf States equivalent to Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have been able to rival the larger economies of Turkey and Saudi Arabia and plenty of of those economies now have the some of the highest GDPs per capita in the world (Qatars, the highest, stands at 88,232 US$).

With the worlds two fastest growing economies and 60% of the worlds population, Asia is emerging as arguably the most important market in world trade.

Asia is a permanently diverse and disparate continent and as a result the key economic drivers differ substantially across it, to a point relating to the geography of each locale. The emerging superpowers of China and India are, as are much of central Asia and the subcontinent, largely reliant in the industrial and manufacturing industries fuelled by their substantial workforces and extensive resources. The rise of both China and India has followed an easing in the socialist governance of the two countries which has unlocked the potential in the massive labour forces and natural resources that each country has.

The financial services also are integral to the economies of smaller but prosperous South East Asian states equivalent to Hong Kong and Singapore (together with South Korea and Taiwan known as the Asian Tigers due to their rapid economic development in the second half of the twentieth century). The two states are free trade ports which have grown their economies through the adoption of western capitalist principles, international trade and low taxation. They have two of the worlds most important stock exchanges with the Hong Kong stock exchange the world s six largest by market capitalisation.