E-Paper
External affairs ministry, PIC to host 3-day Asia Economic Dialogue from Feb 28-Mar 1
The MEA-PIC geo-economic conference will be held under the annual Asia Economic Dialogue series.
A three-day international conference on ‘Asia and the Emerging International Trading System’ has been organised in the city by the ministry of external affairs (MEA) and Pune International Centre (PIC) from February 28 to March 1.
The MEA-PIC geo-economic conference will be held under the annual Asia Economic Dialogue series. The theme of the conference centres around the fact that Asia is home to more than half of world’s population and 21 of the world’s largest 30 cities are in Asia.
Sessions at the conference include World Trade Organisation (WTO) reforms, greater participation of developing countries (DCs) in international trade, ‘open regionalism’ on strengthening regional trading blocs, financial innovations from Asia and Africa and Pole-valulting technologies that will lead to sustainable development through daring innovation.
S Jaishankar, external affairs minister; Shehan Semasinghe, Sri Lanka’s state minister of development banking and loan schemes; Vijay Kelkar, PIC vice-president; KM Birla, chairman Aditya Birla Group and Baba Kalyani, chairman and managing director, Bharat Forge are among the speakers on the first day of the event.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by 2030, Asians would have bought as many vehicles as rest of the world combined. As per projections, the Asian economies are set to emerge larger than the rest of the world combined by the end of 2020. This growth needs to be seen in the perspective where as late as 2000, Asia accounted only for a third of world’s output. While the rise of China, and to a smaller degree India, has been well documented, what has been less documented is the rise and growth of other smaller and mid-sized economies such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
Kishore Mahbubani from the Asia Research Institute, National Institute of Singapore and Bibek Debroy, chairman, prime minister’s economic advisory council and a number of ministers from the union government will be among the key speakers at this event.
