Asian Banker

The United States must abandon its projectionist policies and increase its monetary aid to developing nations to spur worldwide economic recovery, the head of a major Asian bank said yesterday.

Masso Fujioka, speaking to over 400 people at the Kennedy School on "Asia and the World Economy: Recovery and Interdependence," lauded the Asian economic system as a world example, an assertion contradicted later by a group of Harvard panelists.

After the speech, Fujioka, president of the Philippine-based Asian Development Bank, was joined in discussion by Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky, Professor of Sociology Ezra F. Vogel, Cabot Professor of Economics Hollis B. Chenery and Dillon Professor of International Affairs Raymond Vernon.

Arriving from the recent Washington meetings of the International Monetary Fund on development and recovery, Fujioka expressed doubts that the "positive economic indications" in the U.S. over the last few months will lead to worldwide recovery. He called on Western nations to "support Asia in its attempts to continue the process of development."

Doubt

The Harvard panelists, although supportive of Fujioka's broad points, expressed doubt over the legitimacy of the use of Japan and the small-industry "Gang of Four"--Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea--as "models for the developing world."

The economists pointed to Fujioka's proposal for the eradication of Third World debt by improving export/import balances as an "interesting exercise in frustration."

Rosovsky, an expert on the Japanese economy, noted that "in these times of sad economic news, it does one good to hear from the one area where some good is happening," added that he hoped he was wrong in failing to see the use of East Asia as a model for the developing nations of the world."