MANILA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines urged the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Saturday to help "future-proof" its member-countries against the sweeping impact of disruptive change by aiding them in harnessing the rapid advances in digital technologies to improve productivity and strengthen economies.
Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez stressed the "need to 'future-proof' (these) economies so that technological change makes them strong rather than undermines them. Smart technologies bring great promise but also some amount of peril."
"The ADB, as the region's main concourse of development ideas, should help member countries to better harness the forces of technological change. It needs to develop the means to support member countries from falling into the wrong side of the digital divide," Dominguez said in his address at the opening session of the 51st annual meeting at the ADB Board of Governors.
Dominguez, who is this year's chairman of this bank's Board of Governors, said ADB's Strategy 2030 is a "good beginning" in meeting this challenge as it provides the institution with a roadmap that will not only let member-countries adjust to the new balance of power in the global economy, in which the Asia-Pacific is the center of gravity, but also help them cope with the enormous forces unleashed by new technologies.
"Rapid, and especially disruptive, technological progress carries both risks and rewards," he said, adding that the ADB is "a vital institution for the region in ensuring the risks are mitigated and the rewards evenly distributed."
Dominguez said living in today's world means coping with rapid advances in digital technologies, which have both its "upsides and downsides" as these could, for instance, dramatically improve productivity but could also eradicate jobs and introduce greater inequalities. Rapid, disruptive change can likewise greatly enhance access to financial systems but also open doors to digital monies like virtual currencies that no government is prepared to regulate, demand skills that schools are not prepared to provide, and produce virtual constituencies our political orders are not conceived to include, Dominguez said.
Dominguez also underscored the ADB's "catalytic role" in the economic achievement of the Asia-Pacific region over the past few decades, with China and India emerging as the principal engines of growth for the global economy and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprising some of today's fastest-growing economies in the world.