Purpose

ADB's South Asia Department will explore small and medium enterprises (SME) clusters' contribution to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Strategy 2020 for inclusive economic growth in Asia.

Objectives

The Conference on Cluster Economic Development aims to:

1. provide an overview of Cluster-Economic Development (CED) as a new paradigm for local economic development, examples of good practices of SME-clusters;
2. show examples of good practices of SME-clusters; and
3. contribute to the ongoing discussions on using the cluster approach as an example of a CED application.

Target participants

Representatives from the governments of Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam; international development agencies and organizations; academe; non-government organization (NGO), the private sector; and ADB.

Resource speakers

In order of appearance

• Jebamalai Vinanchiarachi, former Principal Adviser to the UNIDO Director General
• Christian Ketels, Professor, Harvard Business School
• Venkatachalam Anbumozhi, Capacity Building Specialist, Asian Development Bank Institute
• Tulus Tambunan, Director, Center for Industry and SME Studies, University of Trisakti
• Eric Hansen, President, Economic Transformations Group, Inc
• Andreas W. Koenig, Principal, Eco Industry and Senior Advisor, Re-Tem Corp.
• Chettiyappan Visvanathan, Professor, Asian Institute of Technology
• Masaki Kojima, Director, Zero-Emission Support Institute
• Anthony S.F. Chiu, Professor, Center for Engineering and Sustainable Development Research, De La Salle University
• KyeongAe Choe, Lead Professional (Water and Urban Development), Asian Development Bank
• Brian Roberts. Director, Strategic Planning and Management Services