Note: The Economy of Seepage and Leakage in Asia: The most dangerous issue

doi: https://doi.org/10.35536/lje.2001.v6.i1.a9

Gilbert Etienne



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Abstract

Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and other Asian countries already face very serious challenges in infrastructure, agriculture, State owned enterprises and environment. Inspite of the increase in private investments, local or from outside, the situation could get worse in the next decade or so for lack of public finance. Such a shortage is bound to slow down future growth, particularly in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, and prevent an acceleration of growth in South Asia. One major remedy would be to reduce seepage and leakage of public money which has taken on such enormous proportions, that it looks like being the most critical issue for the coming decades. The leakages so often referred to in Pakistan are, in fact, far from confined to that country, as shown below. However, such leakages have worse effects in Pakistan than in India and China, because of the much more precarious financial situation of Pakistan

Keywords

Seepage, leakage, Asia, corruption, misallocation, resources, public expenditure