ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday stated that the steep increase in energy price and food price exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has really aggravated the balance of payment of a couple of vulnerable countries in that region such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“So we are closely monitoring and maintaining close communication, especially with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as to the most updated economic and financial situation,” added ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa during a conversation with an international broadcast journalist ahead of 56th Annual Meeting of the ADB Board of Governors to be held in from the 2nd to the 5th of May in Incheon, the Republic of Korea.

He said following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, initially, they were worried about its negative impact on some countries in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Mongolia who maintain very close trade and economic ties with the Russian Federation. But so far, these economies have proved to be very resilient. They are doing OK.

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On the other hand, the steep increase in energy price and food price exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has really aggravated the balance of payment of a couple of vulnerable countries [in that region] like Pakistan and Sri Lanka, so we are closely monitoring and maintain close communication, especially with the IMF and the World Bank, as to the most updated economic and financial situation, he added.

He said that he clearly recognizes that multilateral development banks (MDBs) including ADB are strongly expected to play a more active role to take care of global public goods such as climate change issue, global health issue and so on.

But one thing I would like to stress is that our short-term crisis response such as Covid-19 pandemic, food crisis, and long-term investment agenda such as climate change, poverty alleviation agenda, quality infrastructure and so on—they are not mutually exclusive.

We may have to do both things such as these at the same time whenever necessary, he said and added that climate change is a good example.

He further stated that when the global economy recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, it was inevitable that global greenhouse gas emissions also increased. So, let us start with climate change as it is a really uncomfortable truth that this region, the Asia and Pacific region, is one of the most vulnerable regions against natural disasters. We saw what happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh last year and so on, he added.

The ADB president has spoken on a range of issues including food security, climate change, and dealing with external shocks such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine whose transcript was uploaded on the ADB website.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023