East Asia – a region that has transformed itself since the financial crisis of the 1990s by creating more competitive and innovative economies – must now turn to the urgent domestic challenges of inequality, social cohesion, corruption and environmental degradation arising from its success, a new World Bank report has found.

An East Asian Renaissance: Ideas for Growth by a World Bank team led by Chief Economist for East Asia & Pacific, Dr Homi Kharas and Economic Adviser, Dr Indermit Gill is the first comprehensive analysis of the new forces and challenges at play in the region since the Bank’s seminal report of 1993, The East Asian Miracle.

The final version of the report shows that having successfully undergone two waves of integration – first with global markets and then within the region itself – East Asia now needs to move to a third integration, this one at the domestic level.