Byline: Mamta03 East Asias myriad free trade agreements (FTAs) benefit the regions businesses and could help counter falling trade volumes and trade protectionism triggered by the current global economic crisis, a new study released from the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) on Tuesday said.
The representatives from the Asian Development Bank Institute, which brings together economic experts on the region, acknowledged such change will require time, perhaps as much as a decade.
The workshop, "Strengthening Private Sector Participation for Physical Infrastructure in the Pacific Region", was sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), and the Bond University.
Kawai later told Kyodo News that the sponsors of the two-day conference -- the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank Institute, and the Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy of Japan's Ministry of Finance -- did not set up a mechanism to monitor Asian countries' progress in implementing banking and corporate sector reforms.
While the global financial crisis has impacted growth, the fiscal surplus, domestic savings and foreign exchange reserves in the Asean region, there is a simultaneous need to enhance infrastructure via public and private sector investments, special adviser to the Dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute Dr Biswa N Bhattacharyay told a conference here yesterday.
00 Paperback JF1525 The Regional Workshop on Designing E-Government for the Poor was organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
Speaking at a seminar sponsored by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), he cited the need to mobilize Asia's underutilized savings to strengthen regional financial markets.
