The 5th Asia Economic Forum

1
Key Issues For Asia in Post-Global Economic
CrisisAkinori SekiPresident, The Sasakawa
Peace Foundation Advisor to the Prime Minister
of the Kingdom of Cambodia

• The 5th Asia Economic Forum
• Asias Challenges and Opportunities During the
  Time of
• Global Economic Crisis and Financial Crisis
• Raffles Hotel Le Royal
• Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia
• April 6th, 2009

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John Gunther, 1942

• Asia is a land of illiteracy and disease, where
  people are burdened by a sense of looking
  backward, not forward, and they were generally
  less competent than Europeans. He then concluded
  that, "One can talk of Europe, but not Asia."

3
Global Financial Crisis and Asia

• Because of the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis,
  Asian countries exposure to subprime financial
  crisis is at the minimum.
• However, the crisis spread to the real economy in
  Asian countries since the 4th quarter of 2008
  because of the drastic fall of exports
• Growth rate of developing Asia is expected to be
  less than 5 percent in 2009.
• If China and India are excluded, the growth rate
  of developing Asia is expected to be less than 2
  percent in 2009

4
How Asian countries could ride out of the current
economic crisis

• Fiscal stimulus package to stimulate domestic
  demand
• What are the effects
• Depend on the size of the stimulus package in
  relation to GDP
• Depend on the size of the multiplier in each
  country
• Decoupling

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Key Issues

• Enhancing intra-regional investment, trade and
  demand
• Promotion of Asian Currency Unit (ACU) to lower
  the volatility of exchange rate and transaction
  costs
• Market and its limitation, and thus the need to
  strengthen the non-profit sectors to compliment
  the market and the role of the state

6
Key Issues (cont.)

• New approaches to promote economic growth
• Micro-credit facilities for income generation
• Social entrepreneurship for enhancing the
  non-profit sectors
• Corporate social responsibility in social and
  economic development, and environment protection

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Priorities Areas

• Education
• Primary health care
• Agriculture
• Physical infrastructures,
• Environment
• Human resources development and capacity building
• Good governance