Bücher von Asian Development Bank

This publication examines beneficial ownership transparency in nine countries in Asia and the Pacific and explains how overcoming hurdles to ensure the full disclosure of company ownership is key to cracking down on crime and corruption. Focusing on countries including Armenia, Mongolia, and the Philippines, it offers a breakdown of relevant international standards and details challenges related to accurate data verification, collection, and disclosure. It highlights best practices, provides practical recommendations, and shows why a multipronged approach to cross-checking ownership information can help reduce money laundering, terrorism financing, tax evasion, and other economic crimes.

This strategy outlines a regional approach for advancing gender equality and women's empowerment in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).The six GMS countries share common challenges and issues that prevent women from fully benefiting from economic opportunities. Many of these challenges have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy identifies strategic directions and key entry points to mainstream gender across all operational areas of the GMS Economic Cooperation Program. It has been designed to add value to the GMS Program Strategic Framework 2030 and to complement national initiatives of the GMS countries to bolster gender equality.

Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines need to bolster cooperation in their special economic zones (SEZ) to spur sustainable growth. This publication maps out and assesses the economic performance of SEZs across the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area. It highlights challenges they face including growing competition for foreign investment, international trade disputes, and digital transformation. The publication emphasizes the need for policy makers and stakeholders to intensify strategic collaboration to make their SEZs more competitive. Against the backdrop of COVID-19, it outlines practical steps to increase the role of SEZs in boosting trade, creating jobs, and building economic resilience across the four countries.

This report analyzes how Islamic finance can be scaled up to help build urgently-needed climate-resilient infrastructure in the Asia and Pacific region, and ensure its post-COVID-19 recovery is green, sustainable, and inclusive.It outlines how greening Islamic capital markets and social finance, mobilizing project finance for infrastructure and boosting financial inclusion, can play a key role in funding the climate agenda. It details the 14 ADB developing member countries with majority Muslim populations, assesses the growth of the nearly $3 trillion global Islamic finance market, and explores how its faith-based principles support the transition to a green agenda.

This publication provides an overview of institutional investors' interest in green bonds issued in Malaysia, along with an assessment of the perspectives of local arrangers and underwriters on their clients' interest in green bond issuances. It presents the results of a survey to help identify drivers, impediments, and development priorities for Malaysia's sustainable finance market. The findings and insights presented in this publication are intended to inform how the Asian Development Bank and other partners could further support the market's development.

Carbon pricing is an integral element of the climate policy architecture that can help countries reduce emissions cost-effectively, achieve climate targets articulated under their nationally determined contributions, and raise ambition over time. This study provides insights on how well-designed carbon pricing instruments can be woven into climate policies to accelerate efforts toward energy transition and decarbonization. Targeted at policymakers, it aims to help countries design and implement carbon pricing instruments tailored to their national circumstances and priorities that create low-cost, sustainable energy systems capable of boosting resilience and driving long-term growth.

Technology-based startup enterprises are an increasingly important part of the business landscape in Asia and the Pacific. By applying innovative technologies to create new products and services, they can make a significant contribution to economic development while generating social and environmental benefits. However, to survive and then thrive, tech startups require an enabling ecosystem that includes supportive government policy, adequate access to capital, skilled personnel, and quality digital infrastructure. This report assesses the current ecosystem for tech startups in Azerbaijan, specifically in Baku, Ganja, and Shamakhi, and examines the extent to which the ecosystem supports the growing number of startups. It provides recommendations on how the ecosystem can be strengthened.

A sharp increase in nonperforming loans (NPLs) could destabilize financial systems in Asia and the Pacific and compromise post-pandemic economic recovery. This report explains how trading distressed assets could help relieve pressure on banks to ensure they have the capacity to continue financial intermediation. It examines the feasibility of establishing an electronic marketplace to facilitate the trade of NPLs in the region. Designed to serve as a road map, it assesses the region's demand and readiness for an NPL platform, details the benefits it could offer, and explains how it could ultimately help countries improve their financial stability.

Motorcycles are a major component of road transport in Indonesia with more than 120 million estimated to be in use. While the number of motorcycles operating in the country has steadily grown in recent years, the proportion of electric motorcycles remains very low. A shift away from fossil-fuel-based motorcycles will provide considerable benefits for Indonesia by reducing air and noise pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and reliance on fuel imports. This report examines how such a shift can be achieved with a focus on electric motorcycle charging infrastructure. It draws on best practices from other economies to provide a road map and policy recommendations for developing this infrastructure.

ADB became a Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) supporter in November 2021 and this report represents ADB's first climate-related financial disclosures under the TCFD framework. This publication provides an overview of ADB's progress in implementing recommendations in the four thematic areas identified by the TCFD framework: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. It also presents proposed future actions to integrate climate-related risks and opportunities into the core of ADB's business strategy and decisions.

This report explores how the central securities depository and real-time gross settlement (CSD-RTGS) linkage model could be applied to collective investment scheme (CIS) passporting frameworks in Asia to enhance the post-trade efficiency of the region's bond markets. In Asia, there are a number of multilateral CIS passporting frameworks, but little attention has been given to how delivery versus payment settlements can be facilitated under such frameworks. The report finds that the CSD-RTGS linkage model has considerable potential to be applied in Asia as a settlement engine for the cross-border transactions of bonds (as well as for other financial instruments). It outlines how this can be achieved by interlinking the region's CIS central platforms and delivery versus payment settlements infrastructure under the CSD-RTGS model.

This publication provides an overview of institutional investors' interest in green bonds issued in Cambodia, along with an assessment of the perspectives of local arrangers and underwriters on their clients' interest in green bond issuances. It presents the results of a survey to help identify drivers, impediments, and development priorities for Cambodia's sustainable finance market. The findings and insights presented in this publication are intended to inform how the Asian Development Bank and other partners could further support the market's development.

The publication introduces the foundations of natural language analyses and showcases studies that have applied NLP techniques to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. It also reviews specific NLP techniques and concepts, supported by two case studies. The first case study analyzes public sentiments on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Philippines while the second case study explores the public debate on climate change in Australia.

The publication covers the 49 regional members of ADB. It discusses trends in development progress and the challenges to achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth across Asia and the Pacific. This 53rd edition finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has set back the fight against poverty in the region by at least 2 years. Drawing on data simulations, it concludes that people with less social mobility may experience longer-lasting difficulties in escaping poverty. Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2022 includes a special chapter on how data resilience can be achieved in the wake of pandemic disruptions to the operations of national statistical systems. The publication is complemented by a special supplement, Mapping the Public Voice for Development: Natural Language Processing of Social Media Text Data, which explores how social media text data can be harnessed to help policymakers understand the opinions, ideas, and expectations of the public.

Technology-based startup enterprises are an increasingly important part of the business landscape in Asia and the Pacific. By applying innovative technologies to create new products and services, they can make a significant contribution to economic development while generating social and environmental benefits. However, to survive and then thrive, tech startups require an enabling ecosystem that includes supportive government policy, adequate access to capital, skilled personnel, and quality digital infrastructure. This report assesses the current ecosystem for tech startups in Thailand, focusing on four sectors: climate change, education, agriculture, and health. The report discusses challenges facing tech startups in these sectors and provides recommendations.

Active use of local currency-denominated bonds for cross-border collateral transactions could help the development of regional bond markets by mitigating risks, reducing the credit costs of financial institutions, and expanding market liquidity. This report identifies the challenges faced by regional collateral markets and proposes seven policy recommendations for promoting the cross-border use of local currency bonds as collateral in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea-known collectively as ASEAN+3.

This publication provides an overview of institutional investors' interest in green bonds issued in the Lao People's Democratic Republic, along with an assessment of the perspectives of local arrangers and underwriters on their clients' interest in green bond issuances. It presents the results of a survey to help identify drivers, impediments, and development priorities for the Lao People's Democratic Republic's sustainable finance market. The findings and insights presented in this publication are intended to inform how the Asian Development Bank and other partners could further support the market's development.

Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) member countries face growing levels of disaster risk without sufficient financial protection. Regional cooperation solutions can help narrow the protection gap and increase the financing available for quick responses to disaster events. This publication examines risks from flooding and earthquakes. It explores the current approach to disaster risk finance in each CAREC member state to identify opportunities to strengthen financing arrangements. It aims to inform the design of a regional disaster risk transfer facility.