ABSTRACT
In the 20 years to 1997, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Asia’s economies (excluding Japan) experienced annual real gross domestic product increases of between 7 and 7.5 per cent per year. That means that Asia’s GDP doubled every ten years, and quadrupled in real terms from 1980 to 1997. Compared to western economic growth of less than 3 per cent per annum in real terms during that same time period, it is unsurprising that Asia was regarded as ‘an economic miracle’.
