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OPINION

Chart of the day: China's urbanisation

Chart of the day: China's urbanisation
May 15, 2015
Chart of the day: China's urbanisation

Many of the benefits of urbanisation are the result of economies of scale, which allow for a more cost-effective delivery of critical services – hence the correlation with economic growth. China is the main driver behind the pace of urbanisation in Asia/Pacific; the number of people living in urban areas of Asia has increased since 1980 in almost every country in the region – the exceptions being the smaller Central Asian economies of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Though China has obviously made great strides in transforming its economy over the past 25 years, its overall rate of urbanisation is 54.2 per cent, against 91.6 and 91.3 per cent for South Korea and Japan, respectively. A direct consequence of China's rapid economic rise has been its rising demand for energy, which has had a significant impact on global markets for energy commodities. But China’s current rate of urbanisation is only on a par with the transformation of Japan’s economy by the late 1960s and that of South Korea’s a decade later. In short, China still has a long way to go before it catches up with Asia’s other powerhouse manufacturing economies.