Conference on Global Financial Crisis: Industrial Restructuring

Background

This activity is part of the global financial crisis project, which has a crosscutting theme. The current financial crisis and global economic downturn did not originate in Asia, but Asian economies and financial markets have already begun to feel their impacts, and these are likely to deepen substantially over the coming year. The most obvious areas of impact have been exports and equity markets, which have declined sharply across the region, but stresses in currency and credit markets have emerged as well, and domestic demand has softened. This sensitivity has been heightened by the export-led growth strategies followed by many countries.

ADBI is planning a series of conferences related to the crisis, including identifying its likely impacts on Asian countries, developing scenarios for growth re-balancing away from exports, and developing recommendations related to macroeconomic policy, structural and institutional innovations, regional integration and financial reform. This conference will examine impacts of the global crisis on industrial structure in Asia. In other words, it will focus on the longer-term structural impacts of the crisis, not just the cyclical impacts, including those that could influence the long-term growth rate and the structure of the economy.

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Objectives

The conference will review evidence and analysis of the implications of the global economic and financial crisis on industrial restructuring in Asian countries, with the aim of setting up a reference basis for subsequent conferences dealing with appropriate policy responses in the region. Aims of the conference include:

1. explore the impacts of recent global financial crisis on the consolidation of financial landscape in some Asian export-dependent economies at the domestic level and its connectivity with major financial institutions on the introduction of highly-leveraged financial products into these economies;
2. examine the role of industrial restructuring in some Asian export-dependent economies, including People's Republic of China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Taipei,China and Viet Nam, with emphasis on the vertically-linked changes in productivity and technological progress within the broader context of production fragmentation in the wake of 2008 global financial crisis; and
3. identify the direction towards which policy challenges and opportunities can emerge for further enhancement of regional integration amongst these economies.

The main areas included in this conference are:

• Experience of industrial restructuring during previous crises;
• Implications for investment, employment, productivity and potential growth rate;
• Implications for share of industries in overall economy; and
• Implications for economic performance by size of firm.

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Outputs

Conference proceedings.
ADBI Policy Brief and Working Papers.

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Participants

Policymakers from multilateral institutions, the private sector, think tanks and the academic community.

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Language

English