BALI, Indonesia: Asia must do more to cut poverty and take the lead in fighting global warming, the Asian Development Bank president said Monday, as the region emerges from the economic crisis with more clout on the world stage.
The global turmoil suggests the era of rich Western countries having unlimited appetite for Asia's exports "has passed," Haruhiko Kuroda told the bank's annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia. That puts the onus on the region's governments to boost their own domestic economies, he said.
Faced with the worst global slump since World War II, many of Asia's economies are contracting as demand for their exports, long the engine of the region's growth, evaporates in big Western markets.
Indonesia's finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the severity of the downturn is "rivaling the Great Depression" of the 1930s.
The crisis is an opportunity for Asian nations to restructure their economies to become less export-dependent, "to become not only a major source of goods and services but also a major destination," Kuroda said.
The comments come a day after Japan, China, South Korea and the 10-member ASEAN, or Association of Southeast Asian Nations, agreed on the sidelines of the meeting to set up an emergency currency pool of $120 billion. Governments would be able to borrow from the fund, expected to be operational by year-end, to cope with short-term credit crunches.
As Asia takes a bigger role on the world stage, it must also take responsibility for tackling other problems like global warming, Kuroda said.
The ADB says that by 2030 Asia may account for more than 40 percent of carbon emissions, which many scientists believe are the cause of the rise in the planet's average temperature over the past century.
"Unless proactive steps are taken to make growth environmentally sustainable, the region will quickly become the main driver of climate change," Kuroda said.
The May 2-5 meeting is being held at an international convention center nestled amid plush resorts that provides a stark contrast to one of its main talking points: tackling Asia's endemic poverty. Some hotels hosting the conference delegates have nightly rates that are more than a poor family in Asia earns in a year. More than 900 million in Asia live on less than $1.25 a day.
On Sunday night, complementary wine and beer flowed freely and delicate canapes were in abundant supply at a lavish cocktail reception for the 3,000 delegates.
With economic growth in Asia minus Japan seen falling by half to 3.4 percent this year from 2008, the ADB has warned that 61 million people will remain trapped in extreme poverty this year. That figure could increase to nearly 160 million if slow growth continues next year.
Kuroda said the figures are an "alarming setback" for the vision of a poverty-free Asia and urged governments to boost spending on social safety nets, education and health, especially for the poor.
The crisis has set the scene for the bank, established in 1966 with a mandate to fight poverty, to play a bigger role in the region.
The ADB announced Saturday that it will boost lending to the region's poorest nations by more than $10 billion over two years, though it is widely acknowledged this is not enough to make up for the shortfall created by the freezing up of private investment.
The announcement came just days after the bank's 67 member countries approved a tripling of the ADB's capital to $165 billion, expanding its ability to finance infrastructure and other projects aimed at reducing poverty in partnership with the private sector.
But activist organizations have not welcomed the bank's increased firepower. They say ADB-funded projects often harm the very people they aim to help while breakneck growth that the bank helped spur with its loans has unleashed environmental woes.
The bank's "track record with large infrastructure is rife with examples of massive displacement of impoverished communities, destruction of forests and river systems upon which local communities depend," said Red Constantino, executive director of NGO Forum on ADB, an umbrella group pushing the bank to become more accountable.
