Friday 25 April 2008


ASIA'S INCREASING POWERHOUSE ROLE

Michael Richardson

The Jakarta Post, April 25, 2008

High oil prices are bad for Asian economies that rely on imported oil, among them China, Japan, India, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and, increasingly, Indonesia. They fuel inflation, discontent, hardship and, in some places, instability.

However, these obvious problems conceal a tectonic shift taking place in the global economy. Asia's dependence on the oil-rich Persian Gulf is contributing to the massive transfer of wealth, influence and power from the West to Asia and leading Gulf energy exporters.

How does the symbiotic relationship between Asian traders and Middle East oil producers work? Asia spends many tens of billions of dollars each year on oil from the Gulf. Take China: It was a net oil exporter as recently as 1993, but now has to import about half the oil it uses and has become the second largest oil consumer in the world, after the United States. If the price of oil stays close to, or above, US$100 per barrel as forecast and demand for oil in China remains strong, Beijing will have to spend well over $100 billion this year importing crude oil and refined products.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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