Skyrocketing food and fuel prices in Asia and the Pacific will be the prime focus of discussion at the annual meeting of the board of governors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) starting May 3 in Hanoi.
Even as nearly two billion people in the Asia-Pacific region have already been struggling on less than $2 a day, soaring prices of food and fuel have further complicated economic and monetary policy-making for governments, while floods and earthquakes have added to the pressure.
Alongside, environmental degradation and climate change, growing and ageing populations, and global economic rebalancing are among the myriad other challenges as Asia seeks to cement the foundations for a prosperous future.
According to an ADB statement here, the multilateral lending agency's upcoming annual board meeting in Vietnam will assess these immediate and long-term hurdles with ministers and senior government officials, business leaders, fellow international financial institutions and civil society representatives.
Starting May 3 alongside a gathering of finance ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and Korea (ASEAN+3), the meeting is slated to end on May 6. Initial findings of a key study which looks at what the region must do to secure sustainable growth over the next four decades will be discussed at a seminar on the second day of the four-day meeting.
Seminar
A panel of top policy-makers, including Finance Ministers of Bangladesh, France, India and Japan, plus the Vietnam central bank governor and the Parliamentary State Secretary of Germany are expected to participate in the deliberations, the statement said.
A special seminar organised jointly by the ADB, the G20 group of leading emerging and advanced economies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Japanese Finance Ministry will discuss reform of the international monetary system against the backdrop of slow growth in G7 economies, the high government debt in Europe and an economically muscular Asia.
French Finance Minister and current G-20 chair Christine Lagarde, and her Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda are expected to join ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda and International Monetary Fund's Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara in the talks, the statement said.
