Rapid city growth seen as threat to Asian prosperity

SINGAPORE: The rapid growth of Asian cities is posing serious problems and governments must ensure that services and infrastructure can cope, officials and business leaders warned on Sunday.

Delegates to the two-day World Economic Forum on East Asia cited urban congestion, poor education, inadequate infrastructure and income disparities as key problems faced by the world's fastest-growing region.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said urbanisation was giving rise to political and economic problems as well as ethnic and religious tensions, and stressed the importance of urban leadership for the future of Asia.

He said almost three billion people, mostly in China and India, are joining the global marketplace, and "it will be in the cities where all these problems will be concentrated."

"Cities can either become shining nodes of globalisation or they can become festering grounds for violence, crime, extremism, unhappiness," he added. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, in an opening address to the conference, said that over the next 40 years, Asia will see increasing integration and prosperity "and at the same time the likelihood of greater income disparity."