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The 5th Asia Economic Forum

“Asia’s 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

Key Issues For Asia in Post-Global Economic Crisis

Akinori SekiPresident, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation& Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia

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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."

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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

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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

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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