Asia's Response to the Global Financial Crisis - Recommendations for G20

Background

This activity will address ADBI's strategic priority of regional cooperation and integration. The US subprime crisis has blown into a full-scale global financial and economic crisis. Despite a series of measures taken by the US and European countries, financial markets remain very depressed and economic declines are broadening. Compared to other parts of the world however, most Asian countries are better prepared than before in managing the fallout from the crisis that has become highly contagious. However, exports and industrial production have already fallen sharply across the region, domestic demand is likely to weaken, and stresses have emerged in a number of financial and currency markets.

Moreover, the world is entering a very important period in global financial history. In response to the strong impetus of European leaders, the international community will begin a series of global summits in order to reform the global financial architecture to prevent future crises like the one that is currently raging and to put into place a new system that more closely reflects the current distribution of economic and financial power. The next summit will be held on 2 April in London. Asia's views need to be fully reflected in any discussion of the reform agenda. So far, however, there has been no serious regional collective effort to address these issues, perhaps largely because several governments in the region are facing political problems at home. In other parts of the world there are more serious efforts taken to prepare for the coming summit. European leaders will meet soon. The Latin American members of G20 will also be meeting. East Asian countries need to have a clear message to bring to the summit, which otherwise will likely be dominated by the Europeans and with a focus on financial regulations. We believe the agenda dealing with the current crisis should be broader than a focus on tightening financial regulations.

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Objectives

This activity is part of the global financial crisis project, which has a cross-cutting theme. The objective of this workshop is to have a brainstorming session to develop proposals by Asian economies for the next G20 Summit on 2 April 2009. This is intended to fill the gap so far, which is that Asian countries have not been pro-active in developing a coordinated position on issues to be covered in the Summit.

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Outputs

Conference proceedings
Set of recommendations for the G20 summit

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Participants

Representatives from ASEAN+3 countries and Indian think tanks.