WEALTH

FOCUS
The main purpose of
Commodity City is its
function as a wholesale
market for business
people from all over the
world
younger than 19 were obese and 9% of girls – up from under
1% for both genders in 1985.
Such shifting consumption patterns increase the risks
of cardiovascular disease and strokes. These – plus cancer
and cerebrovascular and chronic diseases – could be
reduced by changes in diet and decreases in what the WHO
describes as the “tobacco-use epidemic” in the region.
ASTOUNDING SPEED
While Asia is following the disease patterns of the
industrialized West, where it differs is the speed of
transition. As has been highlighted in PROJECT M, Asia is
going through the fastest demographic shift ever recorded.
Currently, South Korea is the world’s fastest-aging country,
but it is heading a closely bunched pack that includes
Bangladesh, China, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Many Asian countries now have more working-aged
people and fewer dependents than at any point in history.
According to a recent report, Shaping the Future (United
Nations, 2016), 68% of people are of working age and only
32% dependents. This offers a unique make-or-break
opportunity for rapid economic growth, but it also means,
notes Eduardo Banzon, that demographic change that took
up to 150 years in Europe and North America may take only
five decades in many Asia-Pacific countries.
This has important implications for healthcare
systems. As this change takes place, the parallel shift in the
causes of ill health is also occurring. “The problem
emerging now is that countries are not yet rich enough to
manage the aging of the population in the same way that
the Europeans have done,” he adds.
To be clear, the rise of NCDs in Asia is a sign of success
as it is evidence that people are now living long enough to
die of diseases that typically hit in old age. But, even as
Asian countries prepare to meet rising rates of NCDs, many
face unfinished business: the rates of communicable
10 • Allianz