Upon his arrival, Mori was given the ceremonial welcome afforded to heads of state who visit the bank.
Mori was welcomed by ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda along with executive director Phil Bowen who represents the FSM in the ADB board of directors and other members of the senior management team at the bank.
During the day, Mori and his delegation held meetings with the ADB president, the executive director and Stephen Gross, vice president for operations 2 which is East Asia Department, Southeast Asia Department, Pacific Department, and central operations services.
Mori and his delegation also met with the head of the Pacific Department, Robert Wihtol and key staff working on FSM. The meeting focused on the loans and Technical Assistance or TA that are currently active and those in the 2012-2014 pipeline.
Mori’s interest in re-activating the Consultative Group of Donors Meetings was met with enthusiasm from the ADB side.
The CG meeting brings together FSM’s multilateral and bilateral development partners around the same table to discuss development challenges facing the nation in order to better align their assistance to meeting the nation’s development challenges.
The second half of May 2012 was discussed as a possible date of the next CG meeting.
Since joining the ADB in 1990, the FSM has received 8 loans for a total of $75.1 million and 42 technical assistance projects worth $24.1 million. Two of these loans which are worth $19 million and one TA project worth $800,000 are active.
