Press Release No. 16/37

Press Release: IMF and India Host Regional Conference: Advancing Asia: Investing for the Future

February 1, 2016

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Government of India will co-host a high-level conference in New Delhi on March 11-13, 2016, to take stock of Asia’s strong economic performance, its increased resilience to shocks, and the region’s ongoing economic policy challenges.

Advancing Asia: Investing for the Future will bring together senior officials, corporate executives, academics, and civil society representatives from more than 30 countries spanning Asia and the Pacific.

“Advancing Asia provides a forum for Asia-Pacific leaders to discuss a region renowned for its economic successes over the past decades,” said IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. “As Asia’s advanced, emerging market and developing economies move to the next stage of success, they face the key challenge of how to maintain and enhance the region’s high growth record while boosting jobs, reducing inequality, accelerating infrastructure and human capital development and implementing other growth-enhancing reforms. I am very pleased to cooperate closely with the Government of India on this conference that will explore how the region can meet these policy challenges through investments in the future.”

Key topics to be discussed at the conference will include the most effective drivers of growth; income inequality, demographic change, and gender; infrastructure investment; climate change; managing capital flows; and financial inclusion.

Prime Minister Modi and Mme.Lagarde will be among the conference’s keynote speakers. Other official sector participants will include Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of India; Takehiko Nakao, President of the Asian Development Bank; Bambang Brodjonegoro, Minister of Finance of Indonesia; and Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia.

Attendance will be by invitation. The proceedings will be streamed live, and portions will be broadcast by Indian and regional television broadcasters. As part of the conference, young people from around the region have been invited to submit short videos on the conference theme to a Youth Video Contest.

Advancing Asia follows the Asia 21: Leading the Way Forward conference, a conference held in Daejeon, South Korea in 2010, where leaders gathered to discuss the region’s role in a global economy recovering from the Global Financial Crisis.

For additional information about Advancing Asia please contact the conference Secretariat at apd-delhi-conference@imf.org.