Steady decline in oil-rich Brunei's per capita income

Steady decline in oil-rich Brunei's per capita income
SINGAPORE



Saturday, April 12, 2008


Slow fall prompts govt to invest more in education and technology

A STEADY decline in Brunei's per capita income has highlighted the need to make investments beyond its oil and gas resources, a senior economic official from the sultanate said yesterday.

The slow fall in per capita income has prompted the government to step up its investment in education and technology, said Timothy Ong, acting chairman of the Brunei Economic Development Board.

Brunei was probably the wealthiest country in the world in 1980 in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, he said at a forum in Singapore.

While Brunei remains a wealthy country, it has slipped considerably to rank 34th worldwide in terms of per capita income, Ong said at the forum organised by the London School of Economics.

The World Trade Organisation, in a recent report, put Brunei's income per capita at US$30,000 ($41,000), still one of the highest in Asia. Brunei has a population of fewer than 400,000 citizens.

"Despite our abundance of natural resources which have made us, in per capita terms, probably one of the largest exporters of crude oil in the world and the fourth largest exporter of liquefied natural gas... we have experienced over the last decade or more a slow but steady decline in per capita income," Ong said.

This prompted His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, to launch a long-term economic plan aimed at putting the country in the top 10 in terms of income per capita and quality of life by 2035, Ong said.

The plan, called Vision 2035, was an acknowledgement "of the importance of knowledge and innovation as the basis for sustainable economic growth", he said.

It was also in recognition "of the fact that natural resources itself cannot assure a sustainable economic future," he added.

Ong said that while Asia has recovered from a financial crisis that struck 10 years ago, the region needs to narrow economic and social disparities which remain, and in some cases, have widened.

"The evidence suggests that the future lies with those Asian societies most able to acquire and apply knowledge, most nurturing of creativity and innovation (and) most able to retain and nurture talented human resources," he said.

Brunei is the third-largest oil producer in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Malaysia, and the world's fourth-largest producer of liquefied natural gas, according to the Brunei Yearbook 2007, which says reserves are expected to last for at least two more decades based on current production rates.

AFP