ASTANA – After years of economic turmoil affecting both developing and developed countries, the global economy is on a new path of sustainable and balanced growth, according to panellists taking part in the run-up event of the second World Anti-Crisis Conference (WAC) on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank in the Kazakh capital from May 2-5.
“Over the past years, the role of developing countries has increased significantly. In 2008, the international community developed an understanding that developing countries can rebuild the balance of forces in the economic map of the world. Although it was expected that this process would take two decades, it was completed in the last five years,” a WAC statement said.
The theme of the conference was “Global growth restoration: new economic and institutional drivers.”
“Structural reforms are now one of the top priorities for the prevention of world stagnation. Countries of the Eurozone, Asia and China are undergoing major changes in their economic growth models, while G20 countries in their latest communiqué have set the task of a targeted increase in GDP [gross domestic product] to the extent of 2 percent over the next five years,” the WAC stated.
Conference speakers included Minister of Economic Affairs and Budget Planning of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov, Minister of Finance of Indonesia Muhammad Khatib Basri, Minister of Finance of India Palaniappan Chidambaram, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Shamshad Akhtar, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Li Yong, ADB Vice President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development Bindu Lohani and ADB Vice President Marc Uzan.
This plenary session of the WAC, which will reconvene at the 7th Astana Economic Forum later in May, covered measures necessary for sustainable growth in the long term; the role of Asia and Central Asia in the new growth strategy; the impact of reform in China on the global economy; the necessity for regionalisation of the world economy through free trade agreements as well as benefits and drawbacks of such agreements; the global coordination policy; measures necessary for the normalisation of monetary policy in developed countries as well as the dilemma facing the development of the Asian bond market.
