1/2

Opening Remarks by Mr. Haruhiko Kuroda, President Asian Development Bank at the Republic of Korea-ADB Conference on Knowledge Sharing and Development Effectiveness in the Asia and Pacific Region 9:00 a.m., 7 October 2011 Auditorium Zones B through D, ADB HQ, Manila, Philippines

I.

Introduction Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: Good morning.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Conference on Knowledge Sharing and Development Effectiveness in the Asia and Pacific Region. I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our co-host, the Korean Government, led by Deputy Minister Choi of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. I am pleased to have with us today the former Minister of Strategy and Finance of Korea and former ADB Executive Director, Mr. Jeung-Hyun Yoon. II. World Economy and Asia

Today, we are looking at an Asiaparticularly a developing Asiathat has proved a remarkable resilience since the 2008/09 global economic crisis. In the late 1990s the Asian financial crisis made the region a focus of global concern; now developing Asia has proven itself part of the global solution. Despite some increasing downside risks, we remain cautiously optimistic about developing Asias short-term growth prospects. The regions GDP grew 9.0% in 2010. With the fragile recovery in advanced economies, last years export rebound has moderated this year. And with stimulus unwinding, private domestic demand must take over. ADB currently forecasts GDP growth to ease somewhat, but remain vibrant at 7.5% in both 2011 and 2012. While the regions authorities are justly proud of the economic resilience, there is no room for complacency. The external environment for developing Asia's growth remains uncertain. The debt crisis in Europe and political stalemate over the US deficit have exacerbated the

1/2

2/2
anemic recovery in advanced economies. Despite all the talk of decoupling, Asias fortunes remain strategically linked to consumers in Europe and North America, at least for the time being. ADBs current cautiously optimistic forecast is subject to the impact from advanced economies if they further deteriorate. Having said that, our challenge throughout the region is to produce new, permanent jobs and strengthen developing Asias productive backbone. Productivity is a key to sustaining the regions medium- and long-term economic growth. Short-term aggregate demand management must give way to longer-term structural reforms. The region must now focus beyond recovery. It must embrace the opportunity to restructure its economies to ensure that economic growth is inclusive. And we must ensure that economic growth is environmentally sustainable. We need to turn our advantage globally into long-term economic growth that benefits all our people. III. Knowledge Sharing and Partnership

Against this background, knowledge solutions are becoming more and more important in Asia. In our long term strategic framework, Strategy 2020, ADB is positioned to play a bigger role in putting the potential of knowledge solutions to work in the Asia and Pacific region. We recognize that knowledge sharing is an indispensable complement to financial and technical assistance. Under our knowledge sharing program, we intend to more closely link our knowledge sharing objectives with operations, deliver more cost-effective learning programs, expand outreach activities through information and communication technologies, and provide high quality learning opportunities. We hope that the knowledge sharing in this Conference will help these goals. The importance of partnerships cannot be overemphasized in order for us to meet the diverse demands for knowledge from our member countries. Partnership between Korea and ADB is invaluable, and it opens up new opportunities for maximizing knowledge sharing in the Asia and Pacific region. Todays conference is an important step to further deepen partnership between Korea and ADB. We also look forward to strengthening our partnerships with other countries and development institutions. IV. Concluding Remarks

I would like to thank the Korean Government for its support for knowledge sharing, knowledge partnership with us, and its co-hosting this Conference. And I thank all of you for participating, particularly those from our developing member countries and development partners.

Thank you.

2/2