Reuters
Asia's top banking showcase drew to a close on Monday amid tight security with promises of a region-wide fight against poverty.
The last day of the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai focused on an ADB plan to channel hundreds of millions of dollars into targetted anti-poverty programmes.
Two-thirds of the world's poor live in Asia and 900 million of its people live below the poverty line, many dragged into destitution by the severe economic crisis which took hold in the late 1990s.
Addressing the ADB governors meeting, which has drawn politicians, central bankers and top economists from 42 Asian states and over a dozen Western nations, Thai Deputy Finance Minister Pisit Leeahtam said the bank had changed the way it operated to combat poverty.
"We fully endorse the bank's three new pillars (in its) poverty reduction strategy, namely pro-poor, sustainable economic growth, social development and good governance," Pisit said.
Finnish ADB delegate Kirsti Lintonen told the meeting poverty alleviation was now the bank's "overarching goal": "An Asia free of poverty is no Utopian dream. We can make it."
Thousands of police ringed the ADB meeting after predictions of large demonstrations by anti-capitalist, environmentalist and human rights groups who accuse the bank of "anti-poor" policies.
The ADB is a major lender to Asia, pouring money into a range of schemes to improve education, healthcare, reduce hunger and build infrastructure in some of the world's least developed countries.
The ADB undertook hefty emergency lending in the late 1990s when Asia plunged into financial turmoil and recession after the currency crisis of 1997, which was triggered by the collapse of the Thai baht.
The bank's lending soared to $9.3 billion in 1997 during the crisis from a normal $5 billion per annum.
But critics say the bank is "anti-poor" not "anti-poverty" forcing borrower governments to sell off state enterprises and scrap subsidies and support to some of the poorest communities.
Environmentalist group Greenpeace also accuses the ADB of pushing "dirty projects" in Asia, underwriting "destructive technologies" such as large-scale energy projects and unsound waste management.
Several hundred demonstrators from various pressure groups including Thai farmers, student activists and AIDS campaigners, chanted noisily outside the ADB venue, waving banners and placards.
ADB President Tadeo Chino has promised closer cooperation with pressure groups and has ordered a thorough review of ADB policies to ensure they do not undermine the bank's declared anti-poverty aim.
There has been a chorus of warnings at the ADB meeting that renewed prosperity should not derail efforts to reform Asian financial institutions and make them better able to avoid future crises.
Asian officials are working on a plan to pool resources to prevent future currency crises in the event of a repeat of the speculation that helped trigger the deep Asian recession of the late 1990s.
On the sidelines of the ADB meeting on Saturday, finance ministers of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan and South Korea agreed in principle to extend a pact to lend each other money to bolster regional currencies under attack.
Details of the pact were being worked out by officials and there was no clear timetable for its implementation.
© 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.:
