Bali Island, Indonesia - China, South Korea and Japan appear
to be recovering from the global financial crisis, the president of
the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Haruhiko Kuroda, said Tuesday.
But Kuroda said some Asian countries had indicated that they were
seeking to borrow from the bank's new 3-billion-dollar facility
designed to counter the crisis. He did not name the countries.
'The Chinese economy may have already bottomed out ... and the
Korean economy shows some signs of recovery,' Kuroda told a news
conference at the end of the bank's two-day meeting on the Indonesian
resort island of Bali.
Kuroda said even Japan, whose economy contracted 3.3 percent in
the fourth quarter of 2008, appeared to be recovering.
'I'm cautiously optimistic that Asia can recover by the end of
next year,' he said.
Kuroda said the region was facing its most difficult economic
trouble since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
The bank has warned that the crisis would keep more than 60
million people in developing Asia trapped in poverty this year and
nearly 100 million more in 2010.
Growth in the region is expected to fall to 3.4 per cent this year
from 6.3 per cent last year and record growth of 9.5 per cent in
2007.
'The effects are being felt across the region, posing a serious
threat to its poorest and most vulnerable citizens,' he said.
He said the crisis also undermined the region's efforts to achieve
the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, which include
halving poverty by 2015.
But he also expressed optimism that Asian countries could emerge
from the crisis quickly and economically 'stronger than before.'
Delegates agreed that climate change poses clear risks to the
region's long-term growth and early actions can lessen Asia's carbon
dependency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Kuroda said the bank was in a strong position to help the region,
after its board of governors agreed to triple the bank's capital base
from 55 billion dollars to 165 billion dollars last week.
But activist groups said that the meeting failed to come up with
lasting solutions to the financial crisis and climate threat.
The NGO Forum on ADB, a pressure group, criticized the bank for
what it called 'a cynical attempt to use the current crisis to
re-promote discredited large scale infrastructure-biased
development.'
'Unfortunately, throwing money indiscriminately will solve neither
the financial nor the climate crisis,' said Joanna Levitt of the
International Accountability Project, a global development watchdog.
Kuroda said the bank was committed to undergoing reforms, focusing
on human resources management, risk management and accountability.
Commenting on the outbreak of swine flu, Kuroda said Asia was
well-prepared to handle the threat, citing the region's experience in
dealing with the outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) and bird flu.
'I'm relatively comfortable with their ability and willingness' to
tackle the threat, he said.
Kuroda said the bank would also support social safety nets and
help sustain investments in economic and social infrastructure in the
region.
On the sidelines of the Bali meeting on Sunday, Japan, China and
South Korea agreed with the 10-member Association of South-East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) to set up a 120-billion-dollar currency reserve pool
to counter the global economic crisis.
Japan also said it would establish an additional emergency fund of
up to 60 billion dollars in the event of an Asian financial crisis.
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