Asia's role is critical in enhancing global governance, a Singapore official said here on Tuesday.

The financial crisis underscored the growing weight of Asia in global economic affairs, Singapore's Minister for Transport and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim said at the World Economic Forum Global Re-design Initiative Singapore Country Hearing.

He said that China is expected to achieve 8 percent or more growth in 2009. "With each year, the gap between China, the U.S. and Japan will narrow."

India too will have an increasingly important role to play in global affairs. The World Bank recently projected that in 2010, India's economy will grow at the rate of 8 percent, he said.

He said that Japan and South Korea are key players too, adding that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plays a major role in shaping a network of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

He indicated that post financial crisis, the G20 has emerged as a good framework to discuss global issues.

However, he noted that the G20 process itself requires better definition and that a key challenge in global governance for the G20 and other similar mechanisms remains to strike the right balance between the competing imperatives of effectiveness and inclusiveness.

He ended on the note that the imperative is to ensure an open, globalized system that promotes economic interdependence among countries, concluding that the greater the stakes in one another's success, the more incentive countries will have to cooperate, and uphold a stable world order which fosters growth and prosperity for all.