If Asia should continue to progress and transform in tune with the changing times, as the mature and aging West is entering into an era of at best modest growth, the next few decades of the 21^st century could well turn out to be Asia's century.

Well before the global financial crisis, Asia had already emerged as a much more dynamic engine of global growth. According to the IMF, the combined growth rates (14.5% in 2005) of China and India, Asia's two leading dynamos, was more than four times that of Europe (3.5%) and 2.4 times that of the US (6.1%). These dynamic growth rates are not only limited to output. The IMF also estimates that over the last three years, productivity growth in China averaged close to 9% while that of emerging Asia averaged nearly 5%, much more than the 2% increase registered in the developed world. Collectively, China and India already account for 21% of global output, according to IMF's measure of purchasing power parity, essentially equal to the percentage attributed to the US (20%).

The global financial crisis, hitting the West much more than Asia, only serves to accentuate this ongoing shift of economic gravitas from the West to the East.

The Analyst Magazine, Asian Economies, Global Financial Crisis, Social Development, Gross Domestic Product, GDP, Economic Development, Economic Policymaking, Financial Risks, Globalization, Equity Market Capitalization, World Economy, Infrastructural Development.