After seeing its recession touching the bottom this year, Asia is likely to be the first to climb out of the global economic slowdown, said the Asian Development Bank’s Chief Economist.

In a group interview with reporters in Manila on July 2, ADB Chief Economist Jong-Wha Lee said Asia is now in a transition period from the bottom of the crisis to the road of recovery.

Lee said that compared to other regions, Asia – outside of Japan , had mostly managed positive growth throughout the crisis, albeit at lower levels.

He added that the ADB was now seeing stronger numbers in terms of “quarter on quarter industrial production,” and concluded that “ Asia will see recovery faster than the industrialised countries.”

But he warned that there are a lot of downsized risks along the road as export remains an important drive of Asia's growth and without the global recovery it will be very difficult for Asia to go back to its sustained growth path.

The ADB suggested Asian governments should continue economic stimulus packages, have expansionary monetary policies and flexible foreign exchange policy of looser credit and lower interest rates and support small and medium sized enterprises.

The ADB in March forecast the economic growth for developing Asia to plunge to 3.4 percent in 2009 and climb up to 6 percent next year./.