Weitzenegger's Asia Report

Asia

ADB launched Climate Change Fund
http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2008/12474-asian-climates-changes
ADB has establishing a new fund to slow the onset of climate change and to help the Asia-Pacific region adapt to the expected devastating impact of global warming. ADB will provide an initial $40 million to the Climate Change Fund, which will be open for further contributions from countries, other development organizations, foundations, the private sector and other sources. ''The purpose of the fund is to facilitate greater investments in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific to address the causes and consequences of global warming. Money from the fund will be used to provide grant financing for technical assistance, investment projects, research and other activities, and we welcome interested parties to participate in the fund,” said Mr. Werner Liepach, Principal Director of ADB’s Office of Cofinancing Operations.

How to Design, Negotiate, and Implement a Free Trade Agreement in Asia
http://www.aric.adb.org/pdf/FTAManual.pdf
This ADB reference book is intended to be used mainly in present and planned FTA training courses of the Asian Development Bank, to increase the knowledge and capacity of officials who are active in designing, negotiating, and implementing FTAs. Building on theories of international trade economics and the good?practiceFTA experiences accumulated by both front-runners and late beginners in this area, the book explains important facts and benchmarks to be considered when preparing, negotiating, and enforcing FTAs. Rather than going into the details of specific topics, this reference book covers the overall FTA process and its main features.

GTZ’s experience in value chain development in Asia: an external perspective
http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/GTZexperienceinVCdevelopmentAsia.pdf
Value chain development has become an increasingly common focus for development agencies over the last few years. GTZ’s experience in this sphere has also been growing, both practically and conceptually. Practically, projects have been implemented following best practices and approaches available. Conceptionally, the ''ValueLinks'' methodology, which is now accepted as the typical ''GTZ approach'', was developed based on networking between GTZ supported programs in 3 continents and GTZ headquarters. In order to gain more insight from the practical point of view, this discussion paper was commissioned to examine and compare experiences made in the last few years with differing approaches across a region. Focussing on five countries in Asia - Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam - it aims to outline the main characteristics of GTZ’s value chain work and identify the key challenges emerging from this. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to learning within GTZ and in the wider donor community. The paper is built on one key premise: that in working in value chains GTZ’s interest is to achieve impacts that are large-scale and sustainable, requiring systemic change beyond individual firms. It is structured around a framework of issues and criteria for describing and assessing work in value chains and the four key stages in value chain development work: initial selection and analysis, strategies, detailed interventions and monitoring and evaluation.

Asian Development Outlook 2008
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/
ADB’s flagship annual publication, Asian Development Outlook 2008 (ADO) shows that favorable policy conditions and impressive productivity growth associated with Asia’s economic modernization and structural transformation will continue to keep the region on a strong growth path. ADO warns that the risk of an inflation spiral in Asia is palpable and urges policymakers to keep a close watch on it. Inflation is expected to rise to 5.1% in 2008 and gradually slide to 4.6% in 2009. A special theme chapter on ''Workers in Asia'' highlights the importance of providing relevant skills and job opportunities for Asia’s burgeoning labor force. Developing Asian countries may fail to reap the ''demographic dividend” if they do not invest in their education and training systems to make them more relevant to the demands of their rapidly modernizing economies, the Asian Development Bank says in the ADO.

UNRISD: Poverty and Inequality in China
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/rode/12/2
A special of the Journal ''Review of Development Economics'' includes papers emerging from UNU-WIDER’s 2004/2005 research project on poverty and inequality in China and is free online.

Asia's Growth can Provide Economic, Social Benefits to All – Joint MDG Report
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/MDG-Update-2007/MDG-Update-2007.pdf
The Asia and Pacific region as a whole is forging ahead on many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but there is uneven progress within countries and many of the less developed economies need global support to plug some of their key development gaps, says a new report released by ADB and the United Nations. The report - ''The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007” - states that the region is well on track and ahead of its peers in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to reduce extreme poverty by half, attain universal education and achieve gender parity in education by the target year 2015. There are major concerns of disparities in meeting the poverty and non-income poverty targets of the MDGs. The region’s greatest failures lie in addressing the issues of child mortality, nutrition, improving maternal health, and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.

ADB Vice President stresses need for economic and social benefits to be shared by many
http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2007/12212-asian-economics-benefits/default.asp
Asian Development Bank Vice President Ursula Schaefer-Preuss stressed the need to ensure that access to economic and social benefits in Asia can be shared by many, not just by the few. ''Asia is the fastest growing region in the world, and yet if specific actions are not taken, there will be many people falling behind, not being able to benefit from growth,” said the Vice President in a speech at the opening session of the ''Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People” conference in Beijing. She said income poverty in Asia, as measured by the $1 per day benchmark, is declining, much due to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) rapid growth. However, the region still has more than 600 million living on less than $1 per day; and about 1.8 billion people living on less than $2 per day.

KfW IFC Microfinance Initiative for Asia (MIFA)
http://www.kfw-entwicklungsbank.de/ENHome/KfWEntwicklungsbank/News/Smallloans-Bigimpact.jsp
Over the next three years, at least 30 projects will be implemented in more than 12 Asian countries to provide financial services for small and micro enterprises. In the context of this initiative more than 30 projects with a total investment volume of up to EUR 800 million are to be jointly implemented by the IFC, KfW and other investors in over 12 Asian countries in the next three years. A broad range of promotional methods is being used. The main focus of the Microfinance Initiative is on the built-up and expansion of first-class microfinance institutions and on linking them to the local and international financial markets via microfinance investment funds.

East ASEAN Growth Area database
http://www.bimp-eaga.org
The BIMP-EAGA database is intended to support trade and investment in the subregion (Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area) through facilitating access to information necessary for the private sector to identify and take advantage of business opportunities and for policy makers to identify and address issues affecting the investment climate. It currently contains more than 20 million trade and investment related statistics and documents spanning the 4 member countries. Its content and design reflect feedback from wide-ranging stakeholder consultations held in each country and the contributions of 12 national government agencies as well as numerous local government units.

Rich Growing Richer Faster Than Poor in Developing Asia - ADB Study
http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2007/12077-asian-developments-reports/default.asp
The rich are growing richer faster than the poor in developing Asia, and widening disparities in standards of living can threaten the growth process in one of the most dynamic region's of the world, says a new ADB report. Absolute inequality has increased virtually everywhere between the 1990s and 2000s. One consequence of this is that the most well-off have experienced considerably larger increases in their standards of living than the least well-off. For example, the expenditures of the ''rich” (top 20%) have increased much more than those of the ''poor” (bottom 20%). This has happened even in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia where relative inequality declined.

ADB Launches Online Version of Statistical Database System
http://www.adb.org/Statistics/sdbs.asp
ADB has launched an online version of its Statistical Database System, containing easily searchable economic and social data from 1988 onward for ADB's developing member countries. The database, developed and maintained by ADB’s Economics and Research Department, contains data from 1988 onwards and will be a major resource and analytical tool for policymakers, academics, researchers and journalists interested in issues and challenges facing Asia and the Pacific.

Pacific Regional Economic Integration Programme (PACREIP)
http://www.pacreip.org
The Pacific Regional Economic Integration Programme (PACREIP) enhances the capacity of PACPS to support regional economic integration, preparation and conduct of negotiations of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU). Documents relating to the EPA negotiations on Investment in the Pacific region can be accessed here.