An ADB report, Asian Environment Outlook 2005, said Asia's share of the global market for environmental goods and services is likely to triple over the next decade to some 100 billion dollars per year.

The region now accounts for just 37 billion dollars of the 600 billion dollar global market, but its fast growth rate of between eight and 12 percent should triple market size by 2015, when the market should be about 800 billion dollars, it added.

"If the Asian governments really cracked down and started to require clean-ups then the number would go up very rapidly," the bank's senior environmental economist David McCauley told AFP in Sydney, where the report was released Monday.

"I think for a government trying to crack down on pollution and resource degradation, at least in the short-term, the numbers about economic activity and job creation are somewhat reassuring," he said.

"But clearly some firms will lose, others will gain."

The report said that after governments took notice, it was time for the private sector to follow the lead.

The "critical missing ingredient in the pursuit of a sustainable future for Asia and the Pacific... (was) a fully engaged corporate sector."

"We now see that governments across our region -- from India, to Thailand, to the People's Republic of China -- are increasingly ready to take on environmental challenges," said Nessim Ahmad of the ADB's environment and social safeguards division.

"Enforcement of pollution control laws is tightening, budgets for environmental protection are increasing, and judiciaries are taking tougher stances," he added.

"The improved environmental quality demanded by the public will require investment in wastewater treatment, solid waste management, sustainable public transport, and clean, renewable energy systems -- all of which are critical to the economic and environmental future of the region."

Ahmad said Asian consumers are now also demanding greener and more environment-friendly products.

The report found that rising living standards in Asia have been accompanied by a "corresponding rise in pollution and the degradation of natural resource systems."

"Many of these negative environmental trends are of such magnitude that they are of global concern."

To counteract the negative environmental footprint of economic expansion, greater focus was needed on establishing economic and environmental policy regimes, it said.

"New and greener products -- together with massive investments in environmental infrastructure throughout the region -- also show that environmental clean-up and protection represents a strong business and job creation opportunity."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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