Communiqué de presse

 

The Asia External Representation of the African Development Bank organized an Africa Day Joint Side Event with the  Asian Development Bank Institute, “Sharing the Development Experiences of Africa and Asia for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth”, during the Bank’s 53rd Annual Meetings and the African Development Fund’s 44th Meetings in Busan, Korea. After Tadashi Yokoyama, Head of the Bank’s Asia External Representation opened the seminar, Byong Yol Woo, Director General for International Economic Affairs at the Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance, and Takashi Miyahara, Deputy Director-General, International Bureau from Japan’s Ministry of Finance welcomed the participants and Naoyuki Yoshino, Dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute stressed the importance for development of infrastructure, financial inclusion, and education.

Yoshino’s remarks were echoed by Chul Ju Kim, Deputy Dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute and seasoned experts from the Bank’s four Asian member countries -- China, India, Japan, Korea – who explained their countries’ own development choices. They also reaffirmed the need for further collaboration.

Ebrima Faal, Senior Director of the Bank’s Nigeria Country Office said, “In terms of what Africa can learn from Asia, one clear lesson is that transformation requires deep structural reforms. Asia can also take a lesson from Africa: over the last 10 years we have been in the process of leapfrogging a lot of  this phase of digitization, which is key in retail payment systems, such as M-Pesa, M-Coupon, a lot of those initiatives have extended financial inclusion”. Yongpeng Zhang, Chief Research Fellow and Professor of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shared his views on other relevant Chinese development lessons regarding natural resources and openness. David Rasquinha, Managing Director of the Export-Import Bank of India said that cooperation is key to global development and that lasting economic relationships are important for making investments to appropriate institutions to channel domestic savings. 

Prominent panelists from Asian Knowledge Institutions and Development Finance Institutions also presented: Youngsun Koh, Executive Director of the Center for International Development of Korea Development Institute; Mr. Hwan-joon Yang, Executive Director of Korea’s Export-Import Bank;  Nobumitsu Hayashi, COO and Senior Managing Director of the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation, and Hiroshi Kato, Senior Vice-President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

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