At this closing dinner to wrap up our 50th anniversary year celebration, we continued our tradition of honoring successful leaders who have had a substantial impact on the peoples of both Asia and the United States, celebrating their accomplishments which have and will affect our lives on both sides of the world.

HONORED:

Lakshmi N. Mittal
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mittal Steel Company

Charles Prince
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Citigroup Inc.

CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDED TO:

Tan Dun
Renowned Composer and Conductor

EMCEE

Uma Thurman
Oscar Nominated Film Actress

Click here to view Gala Supporters

Charles Prince
Martin, thank you. Martin is a very good friend and as well as a very, very important colleague in the international financial services field. I want to thank Vishakha Desai, Ambassador Holbrooke and the rest of the trustees of the Asia Society. I also want to thank and congratulate Lakshmi Mittal who will go down as one of the great entrepreneurs of our time. Books will be written about him someday.

I also want to thank my Citigroup colleagues. I accept this award on behalf of Citigroup colleagues around the world and a number of my colleagues are here today. I am so proud of our team. We have by far the best people in international financial services. I am really proud of them. I am grateful that all of you are here today and I thank you for all you do for the company.

I would like to reflect for a moment on the fact that we have supported the Asia Society for a long time. This is the 50th anniversary of the Asia Society. And by my research we have supported the Asia Society for about 45 of those 50 years. And that's quite remarkable for us, that kind of longevity and we're very proud of that.

Now Asia has been important to Citigroup for far longer than those 45 years. We opened our first branches of Citibank in Asia in 1902. And it is legendary within the institution that during the Great depression in the United States our operations in China actually funded the dividends that we paid to our stockholders. And while I hope that that will never be as important again, it is clearly extremely important to us. And its important in our past, its also important in our present from our transactions in Korea, in India and most recently, as you have seen, our transaction in China. And it will be very important to us in future as the growth and emergence of the Asian economies make the 21st century a different world to live in than we have ever lived in before. And Citigroup will be part of that. Citigroup will be an important part of the emergence of Asian societies and Asian economies.

I want to thank you again. I want to say a special thanks to Victor Menezes and Steve Wong, long time friends and partners, colleagues of Citibank, who have been on the Board of Trustees of Asia Society for a long time, and were international bankers when that was a rare and special thing to be.

I thank you all again for coming and I wish you all the best. Thank you.

Lakshmi N. Mittal
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am really delighted to be here with you at this Annual Asia Society Dinner. I would like to thank the Society for the honor bestowed upon me which I value immensely. This is the first time that I'm being honored in the United States of America, but it is amusing that I succeed in Europe but I am honored in the United States. For me it is even more significant that I am honored on the 50th anniversary of the Society. In the past five decades, the Society has played a very useful role in building bridges between Asia and the United States of America, and I'm sure that going forward the ties will get further strengthened through your efforts.

Now I would like to say a few words on the rise of China and India in today's economy. There has been so much discussion on both these countries. I believe that the rise of these two Asian economies will change the face of global economy in the 21st century. I'm sure that a lot of us here today have been watching the emergence of China and India as a significant economic power in Asia and are, in some way or another, affected by it. The facts are pretty much clear: more than half of the incremental GDP in recent years is coming from the emerging markets and gradually, the emerging markets are proving to be a force to be reckoned with. China and India with their huge population and emerging middle class have not only been fueling the global growth, but in the process are providing immense opportunities for the developed countries. Of course, the growth story is not all about China and India alone, it is also about Russia and Brazil, but what I have to say would be confined to China and India.

China GDP growth rate has been averaging between eight and 10 per cent for over a decade now, and even though the economists under the Chinese leaders themselves have been predicting the overheating of their economy and the possible economic slowdown, there is no sign of this happening as yet. The Chinese inflation rate continues to be less than two per cent and with the strong external reserves and the growing current account surpluses, the Chinese economy continues to present a picture of strength and stability. There are of course two major downsides in this situation: one is the growing disparity in income levels between the rich and the poor. A recent study has indicated a de-accelerating growth in real income of the poorer sections of the society of over 400 million people and this is not very good news for the Chinese Government who have not yet spelled out specific strategies to tackle this situation. The widespread belief is that the growth in income levels in China would be followed by a strident demand for changing into a more democratic political system. However, a majority of people are not yet inclined towards a change in the system. What happens in the future is still a guess. The political change for a more democratic society would have a mixed effect and could slow down the growth.

In India, however, the high economic growth rate is more a recent phenomenon and four years of consistent high growth has given rise to expectations that the period of growth has come to stay, as has been witnessed in Japan and in China. What makes this convincing is that this growth has been driven not so much by the government collection-as is the case with China-but by strong initiative from the private enterprise. As in the case of China, a growth rate of this order over a period of four years has created wide disparities in income levels. The middle class has growth, but there has been deteriorating economic conditions for many poverty-stricken families. Simultaneous with an increase in rural prosperity, the number of families below the poverty line has declined only marginally. But unlike China, given the democratic political system in the country, the growing disparities create a wave of social discontent leading to productive action on the part of the government in the form of subsidies like free electrical power, subsidized food-grain distribution, etc. which leads to distortions in the market economy and consequent slide in the economic growth. India faces a classic dilemma in this context: the democratic political system is well founded, given the pluralistic nature of the society. But at the same time, it interferes with the pace of the economic reform and consequent ramping up of the growth rate beyond the eight and nine percent. The awareness on the part of policymakers that has surfaced makes sound political and economic sense, to concentrate on reforms also in the rural economy. This realization also on the part of the private enterprise of the market opportunities has attracted several leading business houses to announce schemes for entering into the rural sector.

Let me come to the issue of the market opportunities that present themselves to the developed world arising out of the economic growth in India and China. Both have opened up their economies, both for investments from overseas as also their markets for overseas products. The process, however, is bound to be slow and restrictions in market access in certain areas are understandable. A natural instinct to defend the local industries and markets against foreign goods has been present even in developed nations, but I do believe that with the world economy entering into a high-growth phase, these tendencies will gradually decline and there will be less resistance to freer movement of goods and services across the borders of the world. India and China have been able to leverage the low-cost manufacturing advantage and provide a strong competition to the developed world. The large number of talented manpower in these countries provides opportunities for them to acquire capabilities in design and development, upgrade their technologies and improver their understanding of market and customer needs. This could lead to a shift of the manufacturing activities from the developed world to these countries. It would be really interesting to watch what the strategies and the opportunities will be availed to create a win-win situation for the developed and developing countries.

India and China have competing economies with different political systems and it would be unfair to view the developments in these countries from an ideological standpoint. China started the reform process at least a decade earlier than India and had a head start but there is no doubt that these countries are bound to have a positive impact on the global economy leading to greater business and market opportunities. Thank you very much and happy holidays.

Tan Dun
Actually I just returned from a rehearsal with Peter [Gelb] not a long time ago to come to this room of incredible spirit and smart people, and very, very inspirational atmosphere. Actually what we did today at rehearsal is, Peter and I and also Zhang Yimou, the director, a film director also, and Placido Domingo, were trying to figure out what is the best way to have a performance style of the First Emperor Opera on the Met Stage, something extremely old, in the warring state period of China 2,000 years ago. And its very, very difficult but it also turned out very, very easily to let Domingo try something extremely, extremely Peking Opera on the Met stage. In very beginning we were very, very scared if we could ask him to climb…vocalizing, to weep and shout, and be powerfully presenting dramatic power. It turned out he really wants to do things more than we could ask. He is a very, very true artist, always in front of our imagination, specifically vocalizing and performing, and also managing to be professionally supporting everybody.

Second difficulty is, after Peter just left us, Peter gave us some wonderful troubles to make the opera better…he is a wonderful general manager but actually he is a great producer, very sophisticated....After he left, Zhang Yimou and I tried to talk, what are we going to make this soprano and tenor, make their mind and body meet without touch. To make love without touch is very, very difficult. I said to Zhang Yimou you are going to change all those making love scenes to be very, very abstract. I don't know if that can happen. And Zhang Yimou said, "Of course, if we can use music to glue them together." Then I thought well, of course, I try to make my music as glue, as heavy duty glue, to make lovers be together.

But actually what I try is through my music is to connect people. Asia Society is always a big supporter and always encouraged me to do so. From the music ceremony when the British handed Hong Kong to China, the peaceful transfer. And The Map, which is the project we did to save disappearing traditions. In all of those [projects], AS really supported me and gave us enormous, wonderful encouragement and benefit and introductions and directions. Asia Society is not just the home of my music but also the home of many, many outstanding artists, of enormous reach and introduced people to meet and introduced people to love Asia and to love not just Asia but everyplace else in the world as one home of theirs.

For example tonight, we also have our First Emperor team, all those people also supported by Asia Society. We have Wu Hsing-Kuo, the Peking Opera master from Taiwan. We have the wonderful dancer, Dou Dou [Huang], artistic director of the Shanghai national dance and the choreographer of the First Emperor. He is also here. And we also have a wonderful bass singer…Tian Hao Jiang. They were all very much supported by the Asia Society.

And I want to thank also Elena Park, the Met person who really helped us to be here. And also, we want to thank Peter Gelb….It's wonderful to be here, wonderful to be honored here. I think I will continue to take my chance to compose more music to reach even more places in the world…and trying to be with you always through music. Thank you so much.

GALA SUPPORTERS

Honorary Chairman
The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV

Gala Chairmen
Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Sant S. Chatwal, Hampshire Hotels & Resorts, LLC
Stephen H. Long, Citigroup International
Martin J. Sullivan, American International Group, Inc.

Co-Chairmen
Gina and David Chu
Lisina and Frank Hoch
Harold McGraw III, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Wilbur L. Ross Jr., WL Ross & Co. LLC

Benefactors
Altria Group, Inc.
Dwight Anderson
The Coca-Cola Company
Valerie Demont and Bal G. Das
Eni S.p.A.
John H. Foster
General Atlantic LLC
Sheryl and Chip Kaye
Susan B. Lynch
Tara and Victor Menezes
Multicultural Radio Broadcasting
PepsiCo, Inc.
The Thornton Foundation
Susy and Jack Wadsworth
Lulu and Anthony Wang

Patrons
American Express
The Dow Chemical Company Foundation
Susan and David Coulter
Federated Department Stores
Housing Development Finance Corp.
Lehman Brothers
Merrill Lynch
McKinsey & Company
Clare Tweedy McMorris and Howard McMorris II
NBA/WNBA
Newsdesk Media Inc.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Sullivan & Cromwell

Supporters
Access Industries, Inc.
Catherine G. Curran
HBO
Katharine and Rohit Desai
John C. Whitehead

ANNUAL DINNER STEERING COMMITTEE

CO-CHAIRS
Gina Chu * Lisina Hoch * Charles Rockefeller

Alex Pasha Bahadori * Lyndall Bailye * Lauren Buccellati * Bal Das * Patrick Eng * Tina Lundgren * Yoko Makino * Tara Menezes * Harold J. Newman * Stephen Noerper * Kathleen Sloane