Himalayan News Service

Jeju Island, May 16:

The bright economic outlook for Asia’s economies presents an opportune time to consider and act upon regional cooperation initiatives to enhance resilience to future shocks, Asian Development Bank (ADB) president Tadao Chino told the ASEAN+three finance ministers Meeting in Jeju yesterday. In a statement to the meeting, being held in parallel with the opening of ADB’s 37th annual meeting of the board of governors, he pointed out that since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, regional cooperation had gone beyond trade and investment to include monetary and financial cooperation.

This new cooperation fell into three broad categories: greater information exchange and policy dialogue, reserve sharing and pooling, and regional bond market development, states a press release issued here today by ADB. “ASEAN+three is now approaching a critical point with these initiatives,” he said, “The key issue is how the next steps under these regional initiatives should be sequenced, and at what speed they should proceed.”

MoU signed

JEJU ISLAND: Tadao Chino, president of ADB, and Kim Hak-Su, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), today signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on future cooperation by the two regional organisations. The MoU follows-up on commitments made by ADB and UNESCAP at the International Conference in Monterrey, Mexico.