theroleofgovernmentinpromoting.docVIP

The Role of Government in Promoting Industrialization under Globalization: The East Asian Experience( Kenichi Ohno National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) Tokyo, Japan November 28, 2003 Economic development in East Asia has followed a remarkable pattern, unlike any other developing regions in the world.?For this reason, East Asia continues to stimulate policy debate among international development aid circles. This paper presents the essence of what happened in the East Asian development process as Japan sees it. Ideas contained here were formulated through intensive discussion among Japanese officials, experts and scholars in the field of development during 2001-2002 for the explicit purpose of projecting it to the rest of the world. There is a long-lasting gap between the West and Japan regarding what constitutes a good development strategy. The West, especially the Europeans, thinks that the ultimate goal of development is poverty reduction and emphasizes health, education and other programs that directly help the poor. They also stress good governance—efficiency, participation, transparency, accountability, etc.—as the prerequisite for receiving aid. By contrast, East Asia is much more growth contents-oriented. As a major donor and a member of East Asia, Japan wants to propose this view as a complement to the current global discussion which often focuses too much on poverty at hand and too little on long-term growth strategy. Our view has been presented on a variety of occasions including the OECD Economic Forum (Paris; May 2002), World Bank research seminar (Washington; May 2002), World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg; September 2002), Global Development Forum (Cairo; January 2003), OECD Development Assistance Committee seminar (Paris; January 2003), Japan-UK Department for International Development seminar (Tokyo; April 2003), and UNCTAD expert meeting (Geneva; June 2003). In each of these meetings, the reaction is rou