• This entity aims to integrate Asian region and consolidate the creation of a joint economic fund to face future financial crisis
• Asian Development Bank is one of the institutions attending the APEC Financial meeting in Trujillo

Jong-Wha Lee, Chief of the Economics and Research Division of the Asian Development Bank informed that, in spite of the global financial crisis, the Asian market system has been immune thanks to the economic growth of its members; China and India, in particular. They have registered a substantial and sustainable annual growth by 7 and 9%.

“The size of the Asian Economy has been growing and countries as People’s Republic of China have grown very fast. This also implies that the voice of Asia should have more presence within the world economic forum to also assume its responsibility to help developing countries”, he added.

Jong-Wha Lee said that the Asian Development Bank has as core objectives the opening of the markets, the facilitation of trade, the promotion of human resources and the consolidation of a dynamic and non corrupted governmental system. These objectives are similar to the ones of the 21 Member Economies of APEC. The official said that the financial entity has a regional economic integration office and that is why they are interested in attending to the Working sessions of APEC, one of the most important discussion Forum in financial and trading issues.

The representative highlighted that, as APEC Forum, Asian region gathers diverse economies fact that fosters the implementation of poverty-reduction strategies. This problem affects people of different sectors. “This is a regional development Bank that works fighting against poverty and supports developing countries to achieving a better quality of life for their people”, he said.

On the same respect, he mentioned that one of the objectives of the Asian Development Bank is to create a joint economic resources fund for Asian countries, including People’s Republic of China, Japan and Korea, who has “joined to articulate reserves to create an 18 billion dollars fund”, he stressed. Among other purposes of this entity, he did not discarded the possibility of creating a single currency for the Asian region. “The creation of a single currency for Asia may be a future reality, but it needs a bigger regional cooperation in trade and finances. Intermediate steps are needed to achieve such situation, because in this case is not only the Asian financial power to be considered but other factors”, he said.

Regarding the economic relation between his institution and our country said that “even if Peru is not an Asian Development Bank Member, meetings as APEC’s allow a joint work to share diverse economic experiences and views”.