[governance-vn] TOP UN ASIA-PACIFIC OFFICIAL PUSHES FOR POOLING OF FISCAL RESOURCES TO BEAT RECESSION

[Vern Weitzel]

Subject: TOP UN ASIA-PACIFIC OFFICIAL PUSHES FOR POOLING OF FISCAL RESOURCES TO 
BEAT RECESSION
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:00:03 -0400
From: UNNews <UNNews at un.org>
Reply-To: unnews at un.org
To: <news2 at secint00.un.org>

TOP UN ASIA-PACIFIC OFFICIAL PUSHES FOR POOLING OF FISCAL RESOURCES TO BEAT 
RECESSION
New York, Jul 28 2009  2:00PM
Large-scale government stimulus packages are closed off to many nations across 
Asia and the Pacific, the top United Nations official for the region told a 
gathering of senior finance and central bank representatives, promoting a 
cooperative approach to jump-starting economies out of the global recession.

“We need to recognize that not all countries have the fiscal space to implement 
counter-cyclical measures at significant scales due to budget constraints,” 
Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for 
Asia and the Pacific 
(<"http://www.unescap.org/unis/press/2009/jul/g50.asp">ESCAP), said yesterday.

Shrinking resources and other fiscal issues have left several countries in the 
region with little room to manoeuvre in their efforts to reignite suffering 
economies, Ms. Heyzer said in a message to the regional high-level workshop on 
the role of monetary, fiscal and external debt policies in responding to the 
financial crisis.

In her address, Ms. Heyzer pointed to the international community’s response to 
the crisis and noted that the Asia-Pacific region, with over $4 trillion in 
foreign exchange reserves, can work together to spur recovery and restore 
economic growth.

Ms. Heyzer added that ESCAP can bring countries together to share experiences 
and coordinate their development activities for greater regional results, as 
exemplified by the high-level meeting in December 2008 in Bali, Indonesia, on 
the food and fuel hike, financial market meltdown and climate change crisis.

“The huge scale of government spending in the pipeline in many countries offers 
an unprecedented opportunity to design policies that will bring about more 
inclusive and sustainable development,” she told participants at the four-day 
workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The ESCAP workshop looking into various economic policies used by governments in 
the region to deal with the global financial crisis, hosted by the Bangladesh 
Bank, has brought together top officials from the finance ministries and central 
banks of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Laos, Malaysia, 
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Sri 
Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam.

Also attending are experts from international organizations, including those 
from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the International Monetary Fund 
(<"http://www.imf.org/external/index.htm">IMF), the UN Development Programme 
(<"http://www.undp.org/">UNDP), <"http://www.worldbank.org/">World Bank and 
civil society organizations.
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