ADB’s Business Opportunities Seminar (BOS) and Fair opened today (November 16, 2009) in the Auditorium. More than 250 consultants, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers or investors attended the two-day event. The complete programme of activities can be downloaded here.
In his welcome remarks, VP Larry Greenwood highlighted the uniqueness of the fair. It is a ONE-STOP OPPORTUNITIES site for the participants to network and interact with ADB’s: five operational regions; experts on topics such as private sector operations, co-financing, other sectors; and procurement professionals. He cited two reasons to strengthen their on-going partnerships with ADB. First, ADB has tripled its capital base (from US$ 50 to 150 billion) and second, Strategy 20:20 will scale up ADB’s support for private sector development to 50% of our annual operations by 2020 and will focus on: infrastructure, environment (including climate change), regional cooperation and integration, financial sector development, and education. As part of this Strategy, ADB wants to mobilize resources for Asia’s infrastructure financing initiative to promote an Asia Pacific Region with ‘seamless’ infrastructure. Recent estimates show that this will reach about US$ 3.0 Trillion over the next decade. This will open significant and continuing project opportunities in many fields — transport and communications, energy and power, health and education, governance and finance – and also a major challenge for public and private sector resource mobilization.
Meanwhile, Hamid Sharif, Principal Director of ADB’s Central Operations Services Office (COSO) traced the events leading to the evolution of the BOS Fair in the ADB Headquarters. The Fair in the ADB Headquarters will: more effectively address the interest for more sector focused briefings on the ADB pipeline and consolidate the stream of visiting trade delegations that visit ADB each year with increasing frequency. He gave a broad strokes of the Fair’s key events including the COSO presentations on procurement and consulting policies and procedures, presentations by the private sector and co-financing specialists, and more importantly, the significant time allocated for panel presentations by ADB’s sector specialists and the one on one discussions that follow. He encouraged everyone to take the opportunity to: raise questions, obtain clarifications and amplification on issues of interest and effectively network with ADB staff.
Check the photos in the Gallery Page.
