Western province catalyst for regional growth-WDR

Lalin FERNANDOPULLE

Concentration of growth in the Western province encourages growth in lagging regions through economic integration, said the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) 2009, Reshaping Economic Geography.

The WDR emphasizes the importance of integrating the leading and the lagging provinces instead of a narrow focus on places that are not doing well and policies that excessively focus on spacial targeting.

“Some view the growth in the Western province as a concern rather than a source of encouragement; where the need for distributing growth to lagging regions is high on the agenda and where infrastructure bottlenecks get in the way of Sri Lanka’s goals of becoming a regional logistics hub”, the WDR notes.

“Process of prosperity is moving people out of rural areas” a leading World Bank economist said.

Population shift from villages to cities is natural and should be encouraged, said the World Bank report calling for geographic concentration of production, mobility of people and economic integration.

The world’s most geographically disadvantaged people know well that growth does not come to every place at once, said Director, WDR and Chief Economist Europe and Central Asia, Indermit Gill.

“Markets favour places over others. To fight this concentration is tantamount to fighting prosperity. Governments should facilitate the geographic concentration of production. But they must implement policies that make the provision of basic needs such as schools, security, streets and sanitation more universal”, Gill said.

The WDR highlights that economic activity is densely concentrated in few cities, areas across the globe. Tokyo, USA and Western Europe are growth concentrated areas with high production and mobility of people. Over 35 million of Japan’s 120 million population live in a packed 4 per cent of land area.

Economic activities and high production are dominant features in the USA and Western Europe. Lifting people out of poverty requires shifting population from villages to cities.

This process of migration should be welcomed and encouraged, said the WDR. Globally and nationally people move to reduce distance to markets which are prospering. Rising densities, reduced distance and few divisions are the essential prerequisites for progress. Economist point solutions to the three Ds; density, distance and division.

The WDR while focusing on industrial growth for prosperity has undermined the importance of agricultural growth which is inalienable for world food production. The world shortage of food adversely affected the poorer countries aggravating global poverty.

Trying to spread economic activity can hinder growth and does little to fight poverty”, Senior Economist World Bank Somik Lall said.