JEJU, South Korea, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank(ADB) opened its 37th annual meeting of the Board of Governorshere Saturday with the theme of reducing poverty in the Asia and Pacific region.

    In his address to the meeting, ADB President Tadao Chino said that the Asia and Pacific region has achieved remarkable progress in the past year with a GDP growth of 6.3 percent. The economies of developing Asia and Pacific are expected to expand robustly by 6.8 percent in 2004 and 6.7 percent in 2005.

    He called for further efforts in reducing poverty in the regionand continued cooperation in economic and financial sectors to promote regional development.

    "Further structural reforms as well as a deepening and an expansion of regional cooperation are crucial," he noted.

    Speaking at the opening of the meeting, South Korean Prime Minister Goh Kun also called for collective efforts to reduce poverty and promote economic development in the region.

    He said, "The ADB has made significant contributions in lowering the proportion of the poor, who live on less than a dollar a day, from 32 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2000," saving 180 million people from extreme poverty in the region for adecade.

    The meeting, at the International Convention Center in Jeju of South Korea, was presided over by Hun-Jai Lee, deputy prime minister and minister of finance and economy of South Korea, who is also chairman of the ADB Board of Governors.

    Delegates, comprising finance and economic ministers, international finance institutions, representatives of the financial and banking sectors and civil society, from the 63 members of the ADB, are attending the three-day meeting.

    In an opening statement, Hun-Jai Lee said that Asia is likely to remain a major growth engine over the coming years and will increasingly become a player of major weight in the global economy.

    And "the next few years are likely to present us with a great opportunity to further our goal of reducing poverty and enhancing co-prosperity in the Asian region."

    The meeting will also be focused on how to assist the developing member countries to reach the millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

    Despite its economic dynamism, the region is still home to some720 million people living with less than 1 US dollar a day, or two-thirds of the world's poor.

    As the region's premier finance development institution, the ADB meeting is expected to discuss the ADB ongoing reforms, which are aiming at increasing its development effectiveness.

    In addition, the question of a single currency for East Asia, capital market development, corporate restructuring, challenges of infrastructure financing and the role of domestic credit rating agencies in Asia are also among the subjects during the meeting.

    Established in 1966, the ADB is a multilateral development finance institution dedicated to reducing poverty in the Asia-Pacific region. It now groups 63 members, 45 from the region. In 2003, the bank approved loans totaling 6.1 billion US dollars and technical assistance of 177 million US dollars. Enditem¡¡