of the us has helped to sustain the current worldwide expansion, offsetting sluggishness in europe and also in japan. being the fastest growing economies of the world, over the past two years, china and india contributed 73 per cent to the asian growth and 38 per cent to the world gdp growth ( world economic outlook, imf, september, 2005 ). if the recent recovery of economic activity in japan gets strengthened, japan is expected to be another engine of growth for the asian as well as the global economy. some observers prefer to describe the emerging economies of asia as re - emerging economies to clarify that shift of wealth to asia that is taking place is not an unprecedented situation, looking back into economic history, of course, by about three centuries. as per an oecd publication, in 1700, india's share in world gdp was 24. 4 per cent, while china's share was 22. 3 per cent. asia as a whole ( including japan ) accounted for 61. 7 per cent in 1700, which fell to 59. 2 per cent in 1820, and to a low of 18. 5 per cent in 1950, before climbing to 37. 2 per cent by 1998 ( maddison angus, “ the world economy : a millennium perspective ”, oecd, 2001 ). the re - emergence in the second half of the 20th century was led by resurgence of japan, succeeded by the miracle of east asian economies, followed by china's outstanding success, and currently strengthened by indian economy's impressive performance in terms of both growth and stability. according to the data published in the world development indicators of the world bank, india ranks fourth next only to the usa, china and japan as per the definition adopted by the imf in the regional economic outlook on asia and pacific ( may 2006 ), emerging asia refers to china, india, hong kong sar, korea, singapore, taiwan province of china, indonesia, malaysia, the philippines and thailand. 1 / 7 in terms of size of the economies measured on the basis of purchasing power parity ( ppp ). it is interesting that in terms of ppp, three out of the four largest economies of the world are in asia. in the recent years, the asian economies are emerging as major trading partners of india. india's trade has grown faster with these countries than its overall trade growth. emerging asian economies accounted for a significant share of 22. 4 per cent in india's total exports in 2004

the partnership with the oecd and the world bank, we can make our financial literacy programme sharper so that we can make rapid progress in our pursuit of financial inclusion and financial literacy. i also thank dr. k. c. chakrabarty, deputy governor, reserve bank of india, for steering us through the process of hosting this conference and also agreeing to deliver the welcome address. sir, we thank you for your guidance and innovative thoughts. your address has clearly set out the essentials of effective financial inclusion and financial education and given a succinct account of the efforts taken by the government, the reserve bank, other financial sector regulators and financial institutions towards this cause. i thank all the delegates in this conference for making time to attend. i thank the distinguished invitees present here for attending the function with warm enthusiasm. i thank all my colleagues from the reserve bank for their participation. i also thank the media for covering this event. it would not have been possible to hold an event of such scale and magnitude without the wholehearted support and commitment of our colleagues in the reserve bank of india, new delhi office, ably led by the regional director. i thank them all for their support. thank you all, once again. bis central bankers ’ speeches