Introduction : South Asian economic development : impressive achievements but continuing challenges

South Asia comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and is home to almost 1.5 billion people, nearly a third of them very poor, having less than US$1 (in purchasing power parity terms) a day to consume. Only Sri Lanka and the Maldives belong to the category of 'low-middle'-income countries as defined by the World Bank; the rest are all low-income countries. Not least because of its large population size, South Asia has more poor people than any other region in the world. South Asia also holds the key to a significant reduction of global poverty. The region has been next only to East Asia in its economic growth performance since the beginning of the 1980s.