Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma today said Asia played a key role in

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the global economic recovery as many of the countries in the region, including India, never went into a full-blown recession as witnessed by the western countries.

"We have seen that in this recovery, Asia has played a major role. Many of the Asian economies never went into a recession. (Though) the growth was affected as we ourselves came down from 9.5 per cent to 6.7 per cent," Sharma said in his address to the Brookings Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

He said the rise of Asian and Latin American countries should be welcomed as they do not threaten the wealth and prosperity of anyone, but only seek to find their rightful place.

"To some extent, the global economic recovery has been led by the emerging economies. More than half of the global economic growth is coming from the developing countries – a substantial contribution from Asia," he said, adding it is a brave new world which is seeking to redefine itself and the world is shifting definitely towards a multi-polar world.

Asia, he said, as a region has been slow to move towards economic integration, but it is happening now.