A large presence of indirect taxes and a relatively small share of direct taxes could further aggravate the inequality problem, especially when pro-poor public spending in the region is already far from sufficient and optimal. Although many countries of the region have made substantial progress, it is not uniform. Unweighted average of 36 economies in the region for which recent data is available. While taxes on property are not all direct taxes, these taxes are generally very small in Asia-Pacific developing countries.