IN TERMS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, ASIAN COUNTRIES ARE AHEAD OF THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA I. A. RODIONOVA Doctor of Geographical Sciences L. V. SHKVARYA Doctor of Economics Peoples ' Friendship University of Russia Key words: macro-regions, regional shifts, global industry, mining and manufacturing In the global economic development of the last two or three decades, the weight and importance of the economies of Asian states are steadily growing. This manifests itself in various forms: in faster GDP growth in comparison with the United States and European countries, in the active restructuring of the economy to an innovative path of development, in the rapid development of the achievements of world scientific and technological progress, in an increase in the number and relative share of highly educated specialists in the population, etc. This process has its own leaders (first of all, China and India) and outsiders, but the latter are gradually catching up with the former, and therefore the leading positions in economic development that the Asian economic complex is striving for are becoming even more noticeable. For example, in the crisis of 2009, when almost all European and North American countries in the key sector of the economy - manufacturing - production volumes declined, in developing countries of Asia they grew by 2.9%. This is less than the average annual growth of 6.8% recorded in 2001-2008, but the trend is important: the crisis slowed down growth in the processing industries somewhat, but did not stop it. In terms of overall economic development results in the same year of 2009, the Asia-Pacific region, which includes East and South-East Asia, saw output growth of 7.7%, and South Asia - 4.8%, which is also quite a lot, especially against the background of the recession in the rest of the world. On a global scale, in 2009, the financial and economic crisis led to a sharp decline in industrial production compared to the level of 2008. Howev ... Read more