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Change Your Life! |
Asia needs to keep crisis lessons in mind, ADB chief says |
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May 9, 2000
CHIANG MAI, MAY 8 (AP) - Asian countries need to keep the painful lessons of economic upheaval in mind to avoid a devastating new blow from the increasingly globalized economy, the president of the Asian Development Bank warned Saturday.
Tadao Chino opened the Manila-based bank's annual meeting with an appeal to Asian governments - who saw the regional economy recover with 6.4 percent growth last year after shrinking 7.7 percent in 1998 - to avoid complacency now that the Asian financial crisis seems past.
"Asia must not revert to business as usual, taking the crisis as simply a short-term aberration," Chino told an audience including finance ministers and central bankers from around the region.
Asia risks a new shock, which would hit hardest the 900 million people living in dire poverty, unless it speeds up corporate and financial reforms that would improve governance and reduce corruption, Chino said.
Chino said that countries without sound policies and institutional capacities were more vulnerable to the "social and economic stresses as well as financial volatility" generated by the globalizing economy.
"Globalization presents developing economies with enormous opportunities, but it also poses risks that have to be managed," he said.
The benefits include increased access to foreign markets for developing countries, which can increase inflows of capital, technological and managerial know-how, raising employment and productivity, he said.
Prime
Minister Chuan Leekpai, addressing the same crowd, urged the
bank to conduct "concrete research and policy recommendations"
that would make Asian countries more competitive and develop faster.
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