Very rapid poverty reduction in East Asia & Pacific | 
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Poverty levels
Poverty reduction in the East Asia & Pacific region has been extremely rapid, surpassing progress in any other developing region. China’s contribution is highly significant; its proportion of people living on less than $1 a day has been reduced by more than half since 1990. However, middle-income countries can remain home to a large number of poor people. For example, China’s western region and Thailand’s northeast region remain significantly poorer than other regions in the same countries. Countries need to monitor and improve the investment climate for private sector growth. Measures of the investment climate in China, for instance, explain up to 80 percent of differences in productivity between multiple locations of firms. Evidence from China shows that greater flexibility in labor markets can boost productivity, enable more innovative firms to grow, and reduce the incentive to shift employment to informal workers.
Under-five mortality in China
China, which once had a spectacular record of child mortality improvement, is now at risk of not reaching the MDG target to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. The recent rate of progress is far below most other East Asian countries. Simple low-cost treatments for childhood diseases could prevent many of these under-five deaths. |
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