I propose to start this task by looking at the world economy and asking the question - which regions are increasing their share of output, and which regions are finding that their share is falling? I will use a long-running International Monetary Fund (IMF) data base for the comparisons, the results of which are shown in Tables 1 and 2.
Table 1 Asian output (excluding Japan) Per cent 1  Change in share  Share of world output 1982  1997  2002  1982-2002  1997-2002  China India Korea Indonesia Taiwan Thailand Philippines Malaysia Hong Kong Vietnam Singapore  3.76 3.00 0.81 1.17 0.53 0.58 0.82 0.26 0.29 0.20 0.13  10.27 4.28 1.67 1.87 0.99 1.08 0.69 0.47 0.42 0.34 0.24  12.67 4.77 1.77 1.58 1.01 0.95 0.68 0.45 0.40 0.37 0.24  237 59 119 35 89 64 –17 72 39 80 92  23 11 6 –16 1 –12 –1 –5 –5 8 2  Total  11.56  22.32  24.88  115.3  11.5  Total (ex China)  7.79  12.05  12.22  56.7  1.4  1  PPP basis.