Inclusiveness remains a distant aspiration

While global investors clamor for a piece of the action in fast- growing Asian economies, they are not the only ones. Many citizens in those same countries are struggling to participate in that growth.

Ironically, the odds are that the wealthy have a better chance of partaking in geographically distant economic booms than the poor of those nations who are there in the midst of it.

For a while, many Asian countries were satisfied with growth, but in recent years the mantra has changed to "inclusive growth", growth that includes all sections of society, especially the poor.