This week Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi and a large Japanese delegation will join some 4,000 participants gathering in Manila for the 45th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank. By tradition led by a Japanese — typically a former Ministry of Finance official — the ADB remains a major financier of infrastructure projects and poverty reduction programs in the region.
The stated focus of this year's meeting will be on "inclusive growth," including how to help ensure the region's future economic development better reaches all people in Asia — still home to the vast majority of the world's poor.
Following Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's recent announcement that Japan would take steps to forgive about ¥300 billion in debt and resume yen loans to Burma (aka Myanmar), ADB officials may well continue their own push to find a way to resume loans of their own — no doubt also to the benefit of Japan's and other nations' businesses eager to help rebuild Burma's deteriorating infrastructure.