S Jaishankar to address Asia Economic Dialogue 2021

New Delhi, Feb 22 (KNN) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterparts from Japan, Australia, Maldives, Mauritius and Bhutan will address this year’s Asia Economic Dialogue (AED) which will be co-chaired by the Pune International Centre (PIC).

During a virtual press conference on Monday, India’s former Ambassador to China, Pakistan and Bhutan, Gautam Bambawale informed about the same.

Bambawale further said that the meet would address larger issues that impact not just Asia, but the world, and in subsequent conferences, speakers from Pakistan could be invited.

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, his predecessor Vijay Gokhale, and Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhwan will also address the virtual meet.

''The conference is part of a strategic agenda to make it the ‘Davos of East’ on global geo-economics in tune with the shifting of economic gravity from the West to Asia,'' said PIC President R Mashelkar.

The conference under the theme of ‘The post-Covid global trade and finance dynamics’ will begin on February 26 with an inaugural session on ‘Resilient global growth in the post-pandemic world.

The second session, to be chaired by former Chairman of ICICI Bank and NDB, Shanghai, K V Kamath, ‘Global finance in the post-COVID world’ will feature bankers from multilateral banks.