The report released on Thursday said that the expected improvement in global demand arising from steady growth in the United States and the limited rebound in major emerging economies is projected to help raise developing Asia-Pacific growth to 6% in 2013 from 5.6% last year.

Asia-Pacific economies will see subdued growth in 2013 after last year’s sharp slowdown caused by external factors. Efforts to stimulate demand must go hand in hand with macroeconomic course correction to promote broad-based and sustainable development, the report suggested.

At the launch of the UN ESCAP Survay organized by the UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan, Dr. Nagesh Kumar, Chief Economist of ESCAP and Director, ESCAP South and South-West Asia Office while highlighting the key findings from the Survey said that the Indian economy seems to have turned the corner from the low growth of 5% in 2012. Besides slight rebound in the advanced economies, India would be helped by moderation of the inflation creating space for easing of interest rates by RBI that can help in pick-up of investments. Softening of oil and commodity prices in international markets would also help the Indian economy given India’s high dependence on imports and would assist in moderating the current account deficit.

Long-term structural issues, such as rising inequality, energy and infrastructure shortages are compounding the regional slowdown and the Survey said the “structural solution to invigorating the domestic drivers of growth…will lie in making the development process more inclusive and sustainable”.

“The good news is that Asia and the Pacific has already started to rethink and reinvent itself. These efforts should be supported, enhanced and propagated throughout all countries in the region,” United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, Dr. Noeleen Heyzer said in her preface to the Survey, referring to some best practices being tried across the region.

In particular the Survey has highlighted the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Scheme of India that has benefitted 48 million households in over 600 districts in 2012-13 helping not only in poverty reduction but strengthening the rural growth, economic resource base and social protection.

Bangladesh Bank has facilitated banking services to millions of poor free of charges to enable direct cash transfer of agricultural input subsidies and social safety net payments.

With the region home to nearly two-third of the world’s poor and having more than a billion people with insecure livelihoods, the Survey highlights the economic benefits of social protection. It makes a first-time estimation of the public investment requirement of a package of social protection and sustainable development policies comprising a job guarantee programme, a universal pension scheme, disability benefits, increased public health spending, universal school enrolment and universal access to modern sources of efficient energy.

Requiring between 5 and 8 per cent of GDP by 2030 in many Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, this can be self-financed by most countries through raising greater revenue and by rejigging public expenditure, although least developed countries would require external support.

The Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Indian Prime Minister, Dr C Rangarajan , urged policy-makers in the ESCAP region to resist meekly accepting the “new normal” and to push for higher growth rates which could lead to an accelerated pace for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.”

Inclusive and environment-friendly growth is key to creating new sources of economic dynamism amidst the persisting global uncertainty, says the flagship publication of the Bangkok, Thailand-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) which estimates that economic policy uncertainty in the Eurozone and the United States since the onset of the global crisis has shaved 3% off regional GDP – a loss of $870 billion in output.

Noting that the region’s economic progress has been marked by widening income inequalities and severe natural resources depletion, the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2013: Forward-looking macroeconomic policies for inclusive and sustainable development argues that macroeconomic policies can play a vital role in reorienting the region towards a more inclusive and sustainable growth path – a high priority of its post-2015 development agenda.