IMF, World Bank meet returns to Asia for first time since crisis

IMF, World Bank meet returns to Asia for first time since crisis

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

The annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund meeting will be held in Singapore in 2006, returning to Asia for the first time since the 1997 financial meltdown, government officials said Monday.

The meetings will let the global financial community see the economic changes since the crisis, Second Finance Minister Lim Hng Kiang said in a statement released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

"When the meetings were last held in East Asia in Hong Kong in 1997, the region was in the midst of a severe currency crisis," Lim said.

"It is fitting that the meetings will be held in East Asia in 2006 in view of the important steps that many countries in the region have taken in strengthening their financial systems and restructuring their economies."

Lim, who is also the MAS deputy chairman, is in Washington for the latest round of IMF-World Bank talks.

He said wanted to bring world financial leaders to Asia to see "the progress in the restructuring that has taken place and also to get them to focus, refocus back to Asia."

Acting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters in Singapore that by 2006 "many things would have happened" in Asia.

"Countries have changed their policies, put their houses in order, with a new landscape, it's good that the meeting is held in Asia to take stock," he said.

The annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank are usually held in Washington DC, and moved once every three years to a member country of the two institutions.

They draw together the finance ministers and central bank governors of the 184 member nations, as well as chief executives of leading international banks and securities firms who attend the many side events held in conjunction with the talks.