The World Bank says growth in East Asian economies will slow this year after a drop in global demand. But, the bank says inflation remains the biggest threat to the region's long-term economic stability.

Hopes of a single-currency Asian Economic Union (AEU) are doomed because China will soon outgrow its neighbours, a leading economist has warned.

JP Morgan intends to invest $750 million in the Asia-Pacific region against the background of IMF’s forecast of economic growth that may outplace the USA during the current year.

Asian markets rose Monday, buoyed by Wall Street's rally on Friday and because a weak U.S. dollar propelled investors into regional markets. Hong Kong, India , Indonesia , Malaysia , South Korea and other regional bourses hit record closes. New Zealand was the only market to post a loss.

Rapid economic growth has spurred progress in the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger in Asia, where the proportion of people living on a dollar a day has been cut by half, but inequality is also growing in parts of the region, says a United Nations report released today in Bangkok.

An international meeting of government and business leaders, including Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, will discuss Asian leadership and ways to manage risks to the region's growth, organizers said Thursday.

Southeast Asian nations and the European Union have agreed to start free trade talks, and a leading U.S. semiconductor maker says it will invest $1 billion in the Philippines. Claudia Blume at VOA's Asia News Center has more on these and other business stories from the region.

The finance ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan and South Korea (ASEAN+3) concluded their 10th meeting on Saturday afternoon in Kyoto, vowing to further deepen financial cooperation.

Japan is devoting a sizable sum of money to making Asia's use of energy more earth-friendly. Tokyo's announcement came at the meeting of the Asia Development Bank in the Japanese city of Kyoto, where bank officials and government leaders are struggling to strike a balance between the need for strong economic growth and the devastating environmental effects of fossil fuel consumption.

Over the past 40 years, the Asian Development Bank has loaned billions of dollars to the poorest areas of the region. Now that much of the region is booming, the nonprofit institution is in the process of reinventing itself to tackle some of the problems created by economic success. VOA's Kurt Achin reports from Kyoto, Japan, where ADB delegates and officials are holding their annual board of governors meeting.

The Annual Conference 2007 of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) opened Saturday in Boao of southern China's Hainan Province, focusing on the integration of the whole Asia. China's top legislator Wu Bangguo attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech.

Two point four billion people, or 40 % of the world's population, live in China and India. Some economists believe that China and India, with two point four billion people, are moving toward becoming the world's largest economies. We look at the economic growth of the large Asian nations, their increasing trade relations and the change in U.S. policies toward India and China.