The East Asia's economic growth will be over 6 percent in 2005 as the region's economies countered a series of threats, including rising oil prices and interest rates, the high-tech slowdown, and the end of preferential export quotas for garments, according to a World Bank (WB) report released Thursday.

The report named East Asia Update said that bird flu, which spreads in many East Asian countries, also is a growing concern for regional economies.

The region shows growth moderating from 2004's rate of 7.2 percent. Japan is showing signs of a robust economic recovery, and China's GDP is expected to slow next year to just under 9 percent as this year, the report quoted latest edition of the WB's twice- yearly economic survey of the East Asia and Pacific Region as saying.

Besides, economies in the region have adjusted well to some fairly serious shocks since the end of 2003, not least of which was the doubling of global oil prices. Indonesia, for example, which cut fuel price subsidies, adopted bold measures to soften the impact on the poorest through a new cash transfer program and increased health, education and infrastructure spending.

Poverty continues to fall in most parts of the region with number of people living on less than 2 US dollars a day falling to just less than 32 percent in 2005 from 50 percent in 1996, said the report.

Source: Xinhua