Asia's Economies Can Embrace Services to Boost Growth and Productivity

October 30, 2024--Manufacturing has been the engine of growth in Asia, but a transition to modern, tradable services could be new source of growth and productivity
The Asia-Pacific region prospered by becoming the source of more than half of global factory output, but another transformation to higher-productivity services has the potential to further support growth.

Employment and production typically move from agriculture to manufacturing to services, as part of natural progression that comes with rising income.

Today, many Asian countries-including China, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand-are highly industrialized. If history is a guide, industry's share of production will shrink as more activity passes to services.

Indeed, the growth of services has already drawn about half of the region's workers into that sector, up from just 22 percent in 1990, as hundreds of millions moved from farms and factories.

New World Bank Report Charts Pathways for Energy Security, New Jobs, and Market Opportunities in East Asia

August 28, 2025-A new World Bank report, Green Horizon: East Asia's Sustainable Energy Future, outlines practical pathways to modernize and upgrade the region's energy systems to support power and industrial sectors-a key step for East Asia to sustain long-term growth, create jobs, and retain economic competitiveness.

Dissecting Medium-Term Growth Prospects for Asia

August 22, 2025-Summary
This paper explores Asia-Pacific's medium-term growth prospects using two approaches. First, growth accounting analysis and machine-learning estimation reveal how demographics, capital deepening, productivity, and human capital shaped Asia's growth.