Development of Southeast Asia and the Role of Japan

Abstract

The third UNCTAD conference in Santiago, Chile seems to have been fraught with difficulties on account of the passive mood of the industrially advanced countries towards the troubled international monetary conditions and the preocupation with the backward economic conditions of the developing countries. In the end, through a compromise between these two sides, the third UNCTAD was somehow managed to come to a successful conclusion insofar as the New International Round (The Second Kennedy Round), the questions concerning the Special Drawing Rights, and the development assistance were to a certain degree settled. It does not follow that these accomplishments were sufficient for a solution of the North-South-problem. Rather, they worked to call the attention to the difficulties we have to face in the 1970s. It is important, however, to be aware that the United Nations First Development Decade in fact achieved more than had been expected. The annual economic growth rate of the developing countries in the first five years of the 1960’s was 5.2 per cent, whereas it accelerated to 5.8 per cent in the second half of the decade, the average rate in the decade being 5.5 per cent. In other words, it was above the expected 5 per cent rate. But, examined by the growth rate of GNP per capita, the developing countries show only 3 per cent increase as compared with 3.7 per cent of the advanced countries, which means that the gap between the North and the South in fact increased.