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Governors' Seminar

Opening Remarks By
Haruhiko Kuroda
President
Asian Development Bank

At the 40th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors

5 May 2007, 10:00 - 12:00 noon
Kyoto International Convention Center, Japan

Honorable Governors and Alternate Governors, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to welcome all of you to today's Seminar. I wish to express our sincere appreciation to the Governors present, as well as the members of the Eminent Persons Group for agreeing to participate in this Seminar. We are also fortunate to have as our moderator, Mr. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times.

As many of you may already be aware, ADB will be reexamining its long-term strategy in view of the far-reaching changes taking place in the Asia and Pacific region. The Eminent Persons Group, which I convened last June to advise us on trends and future challenges and ADB's role in that context, finalized and submitted its report to me in March this year. The report envisions a dramatically transformed Asia by 2020 where most countries in the region would have conquered widespread absolute poverty. However, even then the region will not be without development challenges. The report identifies critical issues which ADB must be prepared to help tackle, and institutional changes that ADB must undergo, to become more flexible and responsive to the needs of developing Asia.

In seeing first hand the changes taking place and also studying this report, I am ever more certain that ADB must evolve with the region. But to do so, we need a sound basis for our planning and a consensus on the way forward. The EPG report has put before us a vision for a new ADB, which I believe to be an excellent starting point for our discussion. Today's Governors Seminar will start the consultative process for reviewing ADB's long-term strategy.

Thus, without further delay, I would like to request Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary General of UNCTAD and the Chair of the EPG to present the key points and recommendations of the EPG report before starting our discussion.

Thank you.