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PRC, India wanting in economic well-being

01 Aug '07
3 min read

The People's Republic of China (PRC) and India - the two economic powerhouses in developing Asia and the Pacific - are lagging in terms of economic well-being and living standards of their population, a new study undertaken by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) shows.

According to the International Comparison Program (ICP) in Asia and the Pacific: Purchasing Power Parity Preliminary Report released, the PRC and India account for 64 percent of total real gross domestic product (GDP) of the 23 economies participating in the study.

However, a completely different picture emerges if the size of these economies is adjusted by population. Rather than dominating the rankings, the PRC and India drop to tenth and eighteenth positions, respectively, out of the 22 economies participating in the full GDP comparison, as shown in the table below.

Similarly, the PRC ranks 15th and India ranks 17th when economies are compared based on “actual final consumption of households” (AFCH), a better measure of economic well-being of the population.

The AFCH is a measure of what households actually consume, comprising of what they purchase and what they are supplied for individual use by the government (principally education and health). The economic well-being of the population is obtained by comparing household consumption expenditure per capita.

The five economies that top the list are Hong Kong, China (HK$125,303 per capita); Taipei,China (HK$109,108); Singapore (HK$99,706), Brunei Darussalam (HK$81,744), and Macao, China (HK$67,639).

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