COVID-19 pandemic rewrites ADB schedule

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will move to the Philippines the first part of 2020’s annual meeting of governors on May 22 after concerns over COVID-19 postponed the meeting supposed to be held in South Korea, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

In a statement on Friday (March 20), ADB said after cancelling the Korea meeting, the Manila-based lender decided to hold it in “two stages.”

The first stage would be a meeting, reduced in scale, of the board of governors in Manila. The meeting would discuss ADB’s financial statements and net income allocations, ADB said.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III is the ADB governor for the Philippines.

After the Manila meeting, ADB would hold its next meeting on Sept. 18-21 “for a second stage that will comprise a full-scale annual meeting” in Incheon, South Korea.

“The safety of annual meeting participants is of utmost importance,” ADB said.

It said after consulting with the South Korean government it was decided that the “adjusted approach to the meeting is appropriate in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

When ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa met with President Rodrigo Duterte last Feb. 24, Dominguez already offered the Philippines as host in case the lender will relocate the meeting venue following COVID-19’s onslaught in South Korea.

In 2018, the Philippines hosted the ADB annual meeting at the lender’s headquarters in Mandaluyong City.

Edited by TSB