The last two or three years of the 1990s will probably be long remembered in the minds of those in East Asia and around the globe as the Asian Economic and Currency Crisis. Has this crisis actually ended?

Projections of gross domestic product made by various international bodies all show that Asian nations will return to positive growth in 2000. Such indexes as inflation, trade balances, exchange rates and stock prices are also showing signs of improvement.

However, in a sense it is natural for almost any economic indicator to register a year-on-year increase when compared to the record-low levels logged in 1998 and 1999.

For East Asia to truly put the crisis behind itself and return to sustainable growth in the next decade, individual countries must strengthen the international competitiveness of their industries.

Whenever we speak of international competitiveness, the phrase is often misunderstood or misinterpreted to mean cutting-edge, high-tech industries. But in fact, amid the increasing liberalization of trade and investment, such an edge can easily be obtained by traditional industries through international division of labor and other means.

However, while the information technology industry currently booming in the United States and Europe has been very helpful in increasing the efficiency and international competitiveness of conventional industries, the weight of the IT industry itself is much smaller when compared to conventional industries as a whole.

In the end, the basic factors that determine the international competitiveness of an industry are technology and people.

Technology may encompass production technology, management and marketing. But no matter how innovative the technology may be, it cannot be truly useful unless it is transferred to and digested by humans instead of being left as words in a manual. Improvement in industrial growth and competitiveness abroad can only be achieved when technology and humans are connected.

It is probably for this reason that human resource development is being loudly debated both in Japan and East Asia.

In Japan, reforms for human resource development are beginning to take hold, especially in the fields of natural science and technology education. In East Asia, various efforts to build capacity are under way from the viewpoint of education and training in technology and skills.

There are many areas in East Asia's human resource development where Japan can assist. The major reason is that private Japanese firms have been contributing to technology transfers through direct investment. The Japanese government also has a long history of incorporating various projects linked to human resource development into official aid programs.

In addition, there are many examples of joint efforts between the public and private sectors under the ODA program that private-sector experts participate in.

Many entities conducting human resources development programs already exist. Just to name a few, there is the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which exchanges personnel on a government basis; the Japan Overseas Development Corp., which dispatches private-sector experts to companies; the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship, which accepts trainees from abroad; the Overseas Vocational Training Association, which trains Japanese corporate employees so they can train foreigners; and the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization, which helps expand and facilitate the acceptance of foreign trainees.

The Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) recently invited representatives from the above-mentioned organizations to help member companies understand their activities.

Last November, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi himself unveiled in Manila an "Obuchi Plan" for enhancing human resources development and exchanges in East Asia.

These messages have made it clear that programs related to human resource development will become more important in the future, and also that there is much room for improving existing frameworks.

In making such improvements, it is imperative to expand the role played by the private sector. I strongly believe that collaborative partnerships between Japan's public and private sectors should be strengthened and fully implemented to help people build capacity in East Asia and other parts of the world, which could help Asian countries completely recover from their crisis.