PM Modi to attend IMF regional conference on Asia in Delhi

The three-day conference beginning March 11 is being jointly organised by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Indian government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the keynote address at a conference on Asia next month that will take stock of the strong economic performance and policy challenges of the region.

The three-day conference beginning on March 11 is being jointly organised by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Indian government.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde would also be a keynote speaker at the conference on 'Advancing Asia:Investing for the Future' to be held in New Delhi.

The conference to be attended by finance ministers and representatives of 30 countries of Asia and the Pacific region will take stock of Asia's strong economic performance, its increased resilience to shocks, and the region's ongoing economic policy challenges.

"Advancing Asia provides a forum for Asia-Pacific leaders to discuss a region renowned for its economic successes over the past decades," Lagarde said.

"As Asia has advanced, emerging markets 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," she added.

This conference will also explore how the region can meet these policy challenges through investments in the future, she added. It will also focus on the most effective drivers of growth; income inequality, demographic changes, and gender; infrastructure investment; climate change; managing capital flows; and financial inclusion, in the region.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley; President of the Asian Development Bank Takehiko Nakao; Minister of Finance of Indonesia Bambang Brodjonegoro and Governor of Bank Negara of Malaysia  Zeti Akhtar Aziz, are also expected to participate in the conference.