Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Tadao Chino encouraged Asian
countries to speed up economic reforms Sunday at the close of ADB's
35th annual meeting in Shanghai.
"Developing Asia is recovering earlier than anticipated, but this
does not mean all development issues have been resolved,"said
Chino.
He
said that ADB's developing member economies "need to accelerate
policy and structural reforms, invest in human resource including
information technology-related capacity building".
Chino said that Governors from member economies all agreed at the
meeting to a series of reform measures within ADB itself, including
reorganizing the structure of operational departments, issuing new
policies on private sector operations, social protection as well as
water, offering more competitive loan
products, and establishing a NGO center to enhance ADB's dialog
with civil society.
According to Chino, the ADB Governors were pleased with ADB's
effective work in poverty reduction. They also praised ADB's
efforts to counter environmental degradation and promote regional
cooperation as well as to play an important role in supporting the
reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Noting the three Memoranda of Understandings signed during this
meeting respectively between ADB and the World Bank, United Nations
Development Program, World Trade Organization and International
Labor Organization, Chino said that all these indicate ADB will
also work more closely with bilateral and
multilateral development agencies in the future.
(Xinhua News
Agency May 12, 2002)