Its membership ranges from small Pacific island countries such as Niue to the most populous countries of the world, China and India. As the unique intergovernmental forum covering the vast Asia- Pacific region, this Commission's efforts at forging a sense of regional identity have been most noteworthy. It relocated to Bangkok in 1949, where it has remained ever since. In the past ten years or more, the economy of Asian countries have enjoyed an annual average economic growth rate of 8.1 per cent, four times that of the developed countries in the same period. Progress, however, remains uneven among the countries of the region.
Poverty remains a major problem in the region.
An estimated 700 to 800 million people still languish below the poverty line. The ultimate challenge lies in bringing the region's poor into the mainstream, enabling everybody to achieve a better standard of life as envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations.