WASHINGTON: World Bank vice president for the Asian region Attila Karaosmanollu has said “many problems await India’s new government and it will need to manage these with skill and dispatch while also addressing the many structural reform issues inhibiting the growth of the economy.”

Addressing the Japan center for international finance in Tokyo Wednesday with a view to persuading Japan to invest and trade more with Asian countries especially India and its neighbors Karaosmanoglu said in recent years the bank’s overall view of Asia’s prospects had been strongly optimistic and hopeful.

However “this year we see some disturbing developments. In several countries questions were raised as to whether the momentum of structural reforms was not slowing down. In many there were growing political tensions with increasingly ominous interactions between poverty population growth and environment. These concerns temper our usual optimism” he said.

The eighties saw the emergence of India and China as accelerators of the region’s growth but more recently macro-economic strains were beginning to be evident in both countries he said.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 31, 1991