How do we define the wealth gap among countries in the world? Which factors should be taken as the standards?

The World Bank released a 190-page report during the 2005 United Nations Summit commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the world body. The report puts forward a new standard integrating GDP, natural resources and people' skills and capacity, according to Xinhuanet report.

Based on the standards adopted by various countries now, it is no doubt that the main index for a country's financial power is GDP, that is the total value of all commodities produced and labor services offered by a certain country or region in a certain period of time.

However, experts pointed out that problems such as consumption of resources and environmental damages have been neglected in this mode of calculation, going against the sustainable development of a country.

The newly-released report adds content on natural resources and people's skill and ability, from which, experts come to a conclusion that the pattern of development in many poor countries can hardly sustain long.

For example, as for some poorest countries in sub-Sahara Africa, if deducting the net savings from the factors including natural resources exhaustion and rapid swelling of population, then, the per capital net savings for most of the nations will be negative.

The report's makes rankings on the wealth conditions of various countries in the world in accordance with the new standard.

It especially lists the ten richest countries and ten poorest ones. Switzerland takes the first place among the richest, followed by Denmark and Sweden. It is noteworthy that only four nations of ��Group 8�� are included in the 10 richest countries.

In the other group, almost all countries in sub-Sahara Africa are included in the ten poorest nations. It is surprising that the fourth place country counting from bottom is Nepal. Ethiopia becomes the poorest country in the world.

The report shows that China's per capita wealth was US$9,387 in 2000, including US$4,208 intangible assets, US$2,956 capital output and US$23 natural resources. The figure is US$200 more than that in the past. The genuine saving rate on Chinese mainland was 25.5 percent and 21.4 percent in Hong Kong. In this item, China is only next to the first place Haiti, while the figure in United States is only 8.2 percent.

In contrast, Japanese per capita social wealth was US$493,200, Republic of Korea US$141,000, Russian US$38,700 and Indian US$6,820.

By People's Daily Online