Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said he expects “broad and provocative” discussions on the future of the global economy as it relates to the past and present global trends to help the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and its member-economies deal with both the “promise and peril” of the rapid technology-driven change now sweeping across the globe.

This morning’s forum with the theme “Past, Present and Future of the Global Economy” is hosted by the Philippines as part of the series of parallel events leading up to the 51st Annual Meeting of the ADB Board of Governors (ADB) scheduled on Saturday (May 5, 2018).

Dominguez, who chairs the ADB Board of Governors this year, said the forum will attempt to explain how institutions and communities can adapt and how governments will absorb the pace of change brought about by powerful and disruptive technological advances.

Leading the forum are international experts Dr. Peter Frankopan, director of the Center for Byzantine Research at Oxford University and author of the best-selling book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World;Dr. Paola Subacchi, former director of international economics research at Chatham House and a noted expert on international financial and trading institutions that underpin the present world order; and Mr. Eric Jing, the chief executive officer of the China-based Ant Financial which currently serves 800 million users worldwide.

Dominguez said his host country event will “help us reconfigure the past, understand the trends shaping the global economy today and peer into a future being radically reshaped by the power of information technologies.”

“These are broad but also provocative topics. I truly look forward to the great ideas this conference will surely bring forth. These ideas will help us not only deal with the promise but also the peril of this time of rapid technology-driven transformation,” Dominguez said in his opening remarks at the forum.

“This is a great time to be alive: to marvel at the dreams technological advance weaves and to worry about the issues history leaves us to deal with. These are issues of inequality, of the need to rethink our lifestyles to save the planet, of festering zones of intractable conflict, and of the vulnerabilities of our communities in the face of calamities,” he added.

Dominguez said the “arrival of disruptions or the discovery of disruptive knowledge” served as the catalyst by which human history had advanced, which is the same thing happening today as governments and institutions grapple with the impact of “powerful and disruptive technological advances.”

“There are many things that boggle us these days. I am confident that, with the impressive panels we convene today, they will leave usless boggled than when we first arrived,” Dominguez said.

Frankopan will kick off the in-depth discussions at this morning’s forum by exploring the dynamics that shaped the ancient world economic order dominated by the old silk road trade routes and how it relates to Asia’s re-emergence as a global economic powerhouse. Dr. Naoyuki Yoshino, the dean of the ADB Institute, and Dr. Felipe Medalla, member of the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and former director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), will serve as panelists in this session.

The second session on “Saving the International Economic Order” to be led by Subacchi will discuss the tectonic shifts in the global economy and the repercussions of the continued misalignment of representation in the international governance institutions.

She will be joined by Indonesia Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Thierry de Longuemar, the vice president and chief financial officer of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as panelists in the session.

The last topic for discussion focusing on “Financial Technology for Inclusion” will be led by Jing, who will educate forum participants on the use of digital innovations and new technologies as tools to attain inclusive growth and how its accompanying risks and downsides can be addressed. Vikram Haksar, the assistant director for the Strategy Policy and Review Department of the International Monetary Fund and Lotte Schou-Zibell, the chief of ADB’s Finance Sector Group, will join the discussion as panelists.

The delegates to the 51stAnnual Meeting, which number over 4,000, ​include finance ministers and central bank governors of ADB member countries, bankers, representatives from the private sector, civil society, academe, multilateral institutions and the media.

Around 8,000 police officers were deployed to secure this high-level event, which include the ADB Governors’ sessions to be held at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, and other meetings conducted at the ADB Headquarters in Mandaluyong City, and nearby hotels.

Anchored on the theme “Linking People and Economies for Inclusive Development,” among the issues discussed during the 51st meeting are globalization, technology and its impact on jobs and corresponding opportunities, private sector mobilization in funding infrastructure, building climate change resilience, expanding opportunities for women entrepreneurs, and using technology to maximize the skills of aging populations to make development inclusive.

ADB, which is based in Manila since its inception in 1966, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive, environmentally sustainable growth and regional integration.

BusinessMirror, BusinessWorld, CNNPhilippines, Manila Bulletin, and the Philippine Star are the host-country’s media partners for the 51st ADB Annual Meeting.

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