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MANILA, PHILIPPINES - The Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) are jointly establishing a knowledge hub on regional trade and investment cooperation and integration.

ADB’s Vice-President for Knowledge Management & Sustainable Development, Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, and AIM President Francis Gonzalez Estrada signed a letter of intent yesterday to create the joint venture. Senior staff members from ADB’s Regional and Sustainable Development Department, Office of Regional Economic Integration and AIM’s Horacio Borromeo, Professor of Business Management also attended the signing.

The knowledge hub on regional trade and investment cooperation and integration will provide support to regional and subregional forums by playing a facilitating role in regional trade and investment policy dialogue. It will also help ADB developing member countries build their capacity to negotiate free-trade agreements (FTA) and facilitate cross-border trade. The knowledge hub will support research and information dissemination, including support for establishing a database on FTAs in Asia and the Pacific and will build stronger partnerships with other stakeholders and institutions that support trade and investment in Asia and the Pacific as well as elsewhere.

AIM is a regional management school focused on developing competent, entrepreneurial and socially responsible managers. It conducts degree and non-degree programs, as well as undertakes research and public conferences that serve as the venue for public debate on managerial as well as policy issues.

ADB is supporting several knowledge hubs in the region, through regional grant assistance. It has signed agreements to establish knowledge hubs on clean energy at India’s Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), on recycling at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok in collaboration with UNDP and UNESCAP, on climate change at the Energy Environment Economy Institute, Tsinghua University, on public finance at the R. de Ocampo Institute for Public Finance and Regional Economic Cooperation, Center for Research and Communication, and on public-private partnerships in infrastructure at the Emerging Markets Forum-Centennial.

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