Now according to his lecture there was a delay in the transition from authorita
rianism perhaps to the present democratic setup. But may I remind you, we have
the earliest de-mocracy in Asia, perhaps. But the delay was perhaps caused by t
he declaration of martial rule during President Marcos, which was removed after
the end of the Revolution in 1986. We had at first a very rapid economic growth
. In fact, we were third in Asia, second to Japan. But now because martial law
resumed we put the Philippines back into square one. We are under President Ram
os, and as correctly stated by Professor Kuroda, and have a faster economic gro
wth than the 4.5 percent expected -- we are now at eight per-cent as per the la
test report of the President about a month ago. Last, I want to thank the good
professor for putting the Philippines into this discussion on urbanization and
devel-opment. Thank you very much.
Chairman:
Thank you. Yes, from Vietnam?
(Hon. Vo Tong Xuan, MP, VIETNAM)
l'm from Vietnam and I would like to congratulate Professor Kuroda for his
very com-prehensive study on the Philippines urbanization. In your study you
put it very rightly that the fast urbanization of Metro-Manila and Metro-Cebu
in the p ast was due to the neglect of the development in the rural areas.
So the people tended to go to the cities because the rural areas were still
not a good place to live. I understand some of the economists now believe
that for addressing th e problems of the 2lst century, governments should
concen-trate in developing t he cities rather than the rural areas. But on
the opposite, other devel-opment workers still believe that in order to stop
this fast and rapid urbanization, d evel-opment of the rural areas must take
a priority in order to provide the peo ple in the rural areas a better place
to live, so they will not go to the urban areas. So I would like your opinion
on this.
Professor Kuroda:
I'm not sure what should be the priorities based on the rural development.
I th ink that significantly a very crucial link between the urban and rural
areas mu st be made. In case of Japan's economic development after World War
II, in the initial stage, the national growth rate has come up, and the economic
developme nt in general terms was done very quickly before the population
increases. And in that case for any country with a limited financial budget,
if metropolitan o r big city metropolitan areas have already been devel-oped
and if they have alr eady assessed or experienced this before, then it will
be much easier for the g ovemment to invest in that area. And then the general
economic growth rate per head will also increase. But on the other hand, I
said that in the process the larger concentration of population and industrial
capital into an area produces a gap between the developed area and undeveloped
areas, including rural areas. This gap is seen quite often. Now even rural
areas are growing in terms of leve l of economics. The income level and
