Asian Drivers

Governments as Stakeholders

Government need to respond with an effective policy regime which takes advantage of opportunities (the gains to some, for example, from cheap consumer goods and rising commodity exports) and minimises threats (for example, the losses incurred by others through job losses or environmental damage as commodity production increases).

The key challenges for governments are:

• To ensure the development of dynamic capabilities in the economy which ensures future and sustained gains

• To introduce mechanisms to redistribute some of the gains to compensate some of the losses

• To manage the economy to ensure the effective use of commodity rents arising from the boom in the price of commodities required to fuel booming Asian Driver economies

• Where relevant, to look East rather than to look West or look North

• To develop the physical infrastructure and trade links to take advantage of new markets and new sources of supply in the Asian Drivers

• To ensure, through participation in institutions of global governance, that the competitive indirect impacts of the Asian Drivers are minimised, and that the complementary impacts are maximised.