1 The 5 th 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 6 th, 2009 Key Issues For Asia in Post-Global Economic Crisis Akinori Seki President, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation & Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia

2 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."

3 Global Financial Crisis and Asia  Because of the 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  If China and India are excluded, the growth rate of developing Asia is expected to be less than 2 percent in 2009

4 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

5 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

6 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

7 Priorities Areas  Education  Primary health care  Agriculture  Physical infrastructures,  Environment  Human resources development and capacity building  Good governance