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APEC meetings on financial inclusion target the poor, says finance official

Posted on March 3, 2015

TAGAYTAY CITY, Cavite, March 3 (PNA) — Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) delegates and stakeholders who gathered here Tuesday to discuss financial inclusion want to target the poor to encourage them to participate in the financial system, in the hope of spurring economic growth and eventually lifting them out of poverty.

“The target of financial inclusion is the poor because right now, they have very limited access and encouraging them to gain access would lead to more growth, more savings, more investments for all the countries in the region,” Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said in a press briefing at the Summit Ridge Hotel here.

The Department of Finance is hosting the two-day discussion on financial inclusion at the Taal Vista Hotel.

“The main objective of all these things is to increase trade, investment, employment generation and of course raise incomes,” Beltran said.

He said that the goal of the meetings was to share information and knowledge on financial inclusion as stakeholders tried to set up programs that would encourage poor people to participate more actively in the financial system.

“Get them to save, borrow, invest and of course use the money to make their lives better so that they could actively participate in the growth of the economy,” he said.

The exchange of views, he said, would cover such areas as policies, strategies, and practices that led to financial inclusion.

Many of these would involve regulators, service providers, policymakers and private non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that lent to the poor, Beltran said.

Exchanging ideas would mean giving ordinary people more options on what the system could do to encourage more financial sector development, he said.

The meetings, which runs until Wednesday, March 4, would try to find ways to develop more products, additional financial outlets so that these products were made available to all, he said.

Beltran estimated the number of meeting participants at 130.

It is a big gathering for this kind of meeting, he said, adding that the huge number of participants means that APEC member economies are showing an increasing interest in financial inclusion.

The event was organized by the APEC Business Advisory Council, and the Foundation for Development Cooperation, in partnership with Citi Foundation and in collaboration with GE Capital, the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Policy and Economic Research Council (PERC).

The APEC Advisory Group for Financial Systems Capacity Building has been convening the Asia-Pacific Forum on Financial Inclusion since 2010 to provide policymakers and regulators with priority recommendations in relation to financial inclusion. (PNA)

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