While global investors clamor for a piece of the action in fast- growing Asian economies, they are not the only ones. Many citizens in those same countries are struggling to participate in that growth.

Ironically, the odds are that the wealthy have a better chance of partaking in geographically distant economic booms than the poor of those nations who are there in the midst of it.

For a while, many Asian countries were satisfied with growth, but in recent years the mantra has changed to "inclusive growth", growth that includes all sections of society, especially the poor.

News stories in the last year alone have underscored how broadly this idea has gained traction - "Inclusive growth, key to China's future development" headlines the Chinese media; "Inclusive growth biggest Challenge for India", echoes the Indian press.

But it is not just China and India. The same discourse has rung loud and clear in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and even Singapore.

While inclusive growth is unarguably one of the top goals of many Asian countries, it remains very much a distant aspiration.

On the one hand, the World Bank not long ago estimated that 42 percent of the Indian population lives on less than $1.25 a day, indicating "extreme poverty".

On the other hand, the wealth of a mere 53 Indian billionaires accounts for nearly 31 percent of India's GDP.

Rural voters eventually expressed their displeasure at this inequity at the ballot boxes.

Even Singapore, which has grown annual per capita income from $512 in 1965 to $30,000 in 2008, has seen rising public dissatisfaction because per capita incomes have not grown in proportion with the recent spurts in GDP.

The May 2011 elections brought to the forefront a level of vitriol and frustration from a significant minority of Singaporeans who complained about widening income disparity, the high cost of living and the influx of foreigners.

To address these issues, Singapore's goal is to increase real wages by 30 percent over the next decade through productivity growth. Further, there have been increased government investment in developing worker capabilities through retraining in order to spur the adoption of newer, higher-paying job opportunities.

These efforts to affect the real economy, however, take time to perpetuate through the system. In the meantime, Singapore's Gini coefficient has moved upward, in tandem with its rising GDP.

Studies show that Gini increases as GDP increases - up to a point - after which Gini begins to fall, indicating to some that increased GDP eventually results in lower income disparity.

The author is chief executive officer of Record TV from Singapore and a member of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders Community