MANILA. May 4: The Aslan Development Bank (ADB) will review strategies tackling poverty and efforts to reinforce the bank's main soft loan facility at annual talks in Thailand starting this weekend, officials said, reports AFP.

The 33rd annual meeting at the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai beginning Saturday will be attended by finance ministers and central bank governors, who act as countly directors of the premier development bank in the region.

ADB Is subscribed to by 58-member countries and territories, comprising 42 from Asia

and 1G donor nations from North America and Europe. Japan and the United States are the largest contributors.

ADB President Tadao Chino told AFP poverty reduction with greater involvement of the private sector would be a key theme of the meeting.

The Manila-based ADB approved unanimously a poverty-busting strategy in November last year in which economic growth programmes will be given emphasis to improve the lot of illiterate adults minority groups and women among others.

"The strategy is In place and

the emphasis is now on implementation," said Chino, who since taking over the helm last year engineered the consolidation of the bank's objectives into Just one overriding mission: reducing the number of Asians living in debilitating poverty.

Seventy per cent of the world's poor people still live in Asia, a region where 900 million people survive on less than a dollar a day.

A further 10 million people were temporarily pushed into the poverty pit by the Aslan financial crisis which struck in 1997.

Chino said the ADB meeting would review the recovery of the Asian economies from the crisis and the implementation of reforms in the region.

"We need to stress that if governments become complacent about these reforms because of recovery, there is a risk that investor confidence will be eroded and economic recovery may be stifled," he said.

Chino said the weekend meeting would also tackle the question of replenishing the bank's soft loan facility, the Aslan Development Fund, for the 2001-2004 term currently under negotiations.