October 19, 2026, Financial Frontline News — The 2026 Bund Annual Conference on "Technology, Geopolitics and the Global Economy" is being held from October 19 to 22, 2026 in Huangpu District, Shanghai.
Krishna Srinivasan, Director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund, attended the conference and participated in a roundtable discussion.
Srinivasan stated that Asia currently contributes 68% to global growth, compared with only 25% in 2000.
He noted that past growth relied on high investment levels, a billion-scale increase in the labor force, and structural transformation and productivity gains brought about by trade openness.
He pointed out that Asia now faces new challenges: declining returns on investment, aging populations faster than other regions globally, intensifying fragmentation of global industrial chains, and slowing productivity growth.
Research focuses on five major transformations Asia is undergoing, with the core including demographic shifts, technological change, geopolitical fragmentation, climate change, and adjustments in industrialization policies.
He put forward three core judgments: Demographics are not destiny — Asian economies diverge significantly and can be categorized into early demographic dividend, late demographic dividend, and post-demographic dividend economies, and well-designed reforms can offset the drag of aging.
Productivity is a key lever for growth, with artificial intelligence showing outstanding potential — if productivity rises by 0.8 percentage points, it can fully offset the negative pressure brought by aging.
In an environment of global economic and trade fragmentation, deepening intra-regional trade cooperation is an important way forward — calculations show that if trade barriers and non-tariff barriers are reduced, Asia's regional GDP could increase by 2% to 3%.
He added that in industries with high AI penetration compared with those with low penetration, labor demand has fallen by 10%, but this ratio has already stabilized.
This signal indicates that AI is more about reshaping the labor market structure rather than simply replacing human labor — after workers acquire adaptive skills, employers are still willing to hire, and this direction still warrants continued in-depth research.
He further compared the current state of regional integration: intra-Asian trade in final goods currently accounts for only 30%, while the European Union's is about 60%. At the same time, Asia's existing trade agreements lack sufficient depth, with a clear gap compared with the EU.
Asia's regional integration still has enormous potential — deepening economic and trade agreements and improving rules and provisions can help offset shocks from external environment fluctuations such as those from Europe and the United States, and tap new growth momentum.
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