Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Tadao Chino encouraged Asian countries to speed up economic reforms Sunday at the close of ADB's 35th annual meeting in Shanghai.

"Developing Asia is recovering earlier than anticipated, but this does not mean all development issues have been resolved,"said Chino.

He said that ADB's developing member economies "need to accelerate policy and structural reforms, invest in human resource including information technology-related capacity building".

Chino said that Governors from member economies all agreed at the meeting to a series of reform measures within ADB itself, including reorganizing the structure of operational departments, issuing new policies on private sector operations, social protection as well as water, offering more competitive loan

products, and establishing a NGO center to enhance ADB's dialog with civil society.

According to Chino, the ADB Governors were pleased with ADB's effective work in poverty reduction. They also praised ADB's efforts to counter environmental degradation and promote regional cooperation as well as to play an important role in supporting the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Noting the three Memoranda of Understandings signed during this meeting respectively between ADB and the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, World Trade Organization and International Labor Organization, Chino said that all these indicate ADB will also work more closely with bilateral and

multilateral development agencies in the future.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2002)