ISTANBUL, May 6: The president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) closed the organization’s annual conference in Istanbul on Friday with a warning that further economic integration of Asia was essential. ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda said that despite rapid economic growth in the region, small and medium-sized countries risk being left behind unless their economies are integrated with Asia’s giants.

Kuroda, who was elected in February to head the multilateral institution that counts 63 developed and developing countries as members, has been pushing for further integration for weeks, saying it would encourage economic growth. At the closing press conference of the ADB meeting, he said the greatest long-term challenge to the region “was whether the region can cooperate and integrate.”

“Asia and the Pacific have huge countries but we also have many small and medium-sized economies and economic integration is key for their economies to continue to grow and continue to be effective in the global market.” He did not give any deadline or parameters for this, but said the “ADB is prepared to provide its support for economic integration.”

Kuroda has created a new department in the ADB, the office of Regional Economic Integration, headed by his economic adviser Masahiro Kawai, an economics professor of Tokyo University, to work exclusively on making the economies of Asia work together more efficiently.

As part of this effort, ADB chief economist Ifzal Ali said the bank could play a crucial role in bringing down the costs of transport and distribution.

“Infrastructure, trade facilitation — these are the kind of things the ADB is very good at and I am very confident that what the president has stated, we will deliver very quickly over the next few years,” he said.

Ong Keng Yong, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said he was encouraged by Kuroda’s new emphasis, remarking that “what he is talking about is not airy-fairy stuff.”

“It will take time and a systematic approach,” he said. “You will have to organize your programmes, your technical assistance and judiciously use the official development assistance for regional integration.”

Analysts at the conference said, however, that integration would take time and options like a European-style common currency and single market were still very far off.—AFP