Asia-Pacific Needs To Tap Financial Systems To Benefit Region's Poor, Un Says
The Asia-Pacific region, by harnessing market forces and maintaining the world's highest savings rate, has become a
global economic leader, but needs to tap the potential of its financial systems to benefit 800 million people struggling
to survive on less than $1 a day, the head of the United Nations regional economic body said today.
"In the Asia-Pacific region, the economic integration process has been mainly driven by market forces. This has
accelerated the integration of the region into the global economy, but many countries are unable to reach their
potential," Executive Secretary Kim Hak-Su told the 60th session of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and
the Pacific (UNESCAP) in Shanghai, China.
With the Asia-Pacific area now standing as "a newly emerging brain centre of the world," tapping the region's sound
financial systems would help bring benefits to 800 million people of the region now living on less than a dollar per
day, he said.
The Commission is scheduled to meet from 22 to 28 April. After Mr. Kim opened the deliberations, senior officials from
many member countries discussed poverty reduction, managing globalization and social issues. The Ministerial segment
begins on Monday.
In 1947 Shanghai became the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, the organization which
evolved into UNESCAP.