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EAST ASIA: China on Track to Achieve a Millennium Goal – ILO

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Dec 7 2004 (IPS) - China’s rapid march towards economic prosperity is helping East Asia guarantee its place as one region in the developing South that would meet a 2015 deadline of halving the number of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.

That optimistic forecast in a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) contrasts with the odds faced by other regions to help millions of their poor rise out of abject poverty by getting a decent and secure job.

According to the Geneva-based U.N. labour agency, the reality is worst for those living below two dollars a day in the South. ”Current estimates for 2003 show that 1.39 billion people in the world work but are still unable to lift themselves and their families above the two U.S. dollar poverty line,” states the ‘World Employment Report – 2004-05.”

”Among them, 550 million cannot even lift themselves and their families above the extreme one U.S. dollar a day poverty threshold,” added the 256-page report, which was released on Tuesday.

Little of this is true in East Asia, says the report, since it ”is on track” to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of people living on less than one dollar a day.

”In fact China has already achieved the goal,” states the report. ”Additionally, because China’s workforce represents 95 percent of the labour force in the region, the region has also halved the number of working poor since 1990.”

By 2003, China’s economy had cut the number of the working poor to 139 million from 242 million in 1990, a 43 percent reduction, adds the report.

The Asian giant’s success is rooted in its agriculture and industrial sector. Agriculture productivity increased since reforms aimed at reducing poverty were introduced in 1978, the report notes. They led to ”higher rural incomes through change in the marketing system and employment structure and encouraged the outflow of workers from agriculture into rural non-farm activities.”

The dramatic drop in the number of the rural poor reflects this achievement. By 2000, the rural poor only amounted to 30 million people, or only 3.7 percent of the rural population, as against the high of 250 million people, or 33 percent of the rural poor – the year agriculture reforms were introduced in 1978.

”A reduction in poverty on this scale and within such a short time is unprecedented in history,” states the ILO report.

The growth of the industrial sector in urban areas due to foreign investments has also helped reduce poverty, Elizabeth Morris, a senior employment specialist at the ILO’s Asia-Pacific regional office, told IPS. ”You can see it in the jobs generated by the construction sector.”

In the rest of East and South-east Asia, small-and-medium-scale businesses have been the engines of growth, providing employment and helping to reduce those living in poverty. ”Most jobs have been created by these private sector enterprises,” said Morris.

Vietnam, she adds, is typical, where 80 percent of the new jobs have been created by the small-scale businesses.

China is the region’s best economic performer, achieving annual growth rates of around eight percent for years, while Vietnam follows close behind, with annual growth rates of six percent.

The MDG on halving poverty is one of eight targets agreed upon by the world’s leaders at a U.N. summit in 2000. At that meeting in New York, heads of governments also pledged to halve the number of global poor living in hunger by 2015.

They also pledged to ensure all girls and boys will have access to and complete a full course of primary education by the deadline, along with promoting gender equality and empowering women, reduce by two-thirds child mortality and improve maternal health.

Currently more than 1.2 billion people – almost one in every five people – live on less than one dollar a day. And that the Asia-Pacific region will serve as a major test for these goals stems from it being home to almost 768 million – or two-thirds -of the world’s people who live in extreme poverty.

The ILO argued in its report that the creation of ”decent and productive employment is vital for reducing global poverty” as called for in the MDGs.

However labour rights activists are not as sanguine as the ILO about China being the panacea to aid those living in abject poverty across East and South-east Asia.

”The labour market in China is not a safe indicator for the region because it is not sustainable,” Junya Yimprasert, coordinator of the Thai Labour Campaign, a Bangkok-based labour rights lobby, told IPS.

The lack of freedom to associate and some other internationally recognised labour rights are denied to the Chinese workers, she said. ”There is no law to make the employers accountable to labour rights issues and it has already begun to cause problems. Some Chinese workers have started to protest.”

Meanwhile, other activists worry that the stress on China’s achievement may conceal the pockets of poverty across East and South-east Asia that remain ignored in the MDG campaign.

”There is a danger that the achievements in China will mask what is happening in the region towards an underclass living in poverty in villages and cities,” Ashvin Dayal, regional programme manager for the British development agency Oxfam, told IPS.

At the same time, there is a fear that the anticipated dominance of China next year in producing clothes for export will affect poor Asian countries that have depended on the garment sector for foreign exchange and as a source of employment.

”Cambodia is very vulnerable,” said Dayal, since that South-east Asian country may see companies producing garments leaving for China when an agreement to protect the garment sector market ends this year. ”That could lead to more poverty, particularly for women.”