At the present stage of its development, the world economy needs energy more and more. Demand is on the rise for all kinds of fuels, especially for natural gas. In the foreseeable future competition for access to energy resources is likely to increase among the three largest gas markets: Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and North America. Emerging new economic powers in East Asia demonstrate high rates of industrial growth and a steady increase in demand for oil and gas.

The most intensive increase in the demand for oil and gas in East Asia is expected to be from China, Republic of Korea, Japan and Taiwan. These countries meet their needs partly through their own resources but increasingly through imports under long-term contracts from traditional gas and oil producing areas. Recent years have demonstrated growing instability of the global oil market and it forced consumers to search for new potential exporters of organic fuel.

The share of natural gas in the fuel basket of Asian countries is relatively small so far — around 10 per cent. However in the next fifteen years, the highest rate of growth in the global gas demand is forecasted to be in this part of the world where the projected economic growth rates in Asia would be twice as high as in Europe.

Asian countries demonstrate strong economic growth. The OECD-Asia (developed Asia-Pacific countries — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand) demonstrates an average growth at 2.4 per cent per annum while China's annual growth is above 6.9 per cent. Predictions that challenges to China's growth such as its weak banking system, regional disparities, corruption, one-party rule and growing environmental damage will constrain its economic expansion have proven to be unfounded. China has achieved strong economic growth despite these issues. A similar situation is found in Southeast and South Asia. A range of social and economic problems confronts countries across these regions but fails to fundamentally constrain their growth.