The meeting’s discussion focused on the Roadmap for financial and monetary integration of ASEAN, the ASEAN financial cooperation in insurance, customs, infrastructure financing mechanism, ASEAN economic surveillance mechanism as well as other ASEAN+3 financial cooperation initiatives. This is an important meeting in preparation for the 12th ASEAN Ministers Meeting to be held in Danang on 4 April 2008.
The Roadmap for financial and monetary integration of ASEAN is implemented through Working Committees for capital market development, financial services liberalization and capital account liberalization. At the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore last November, ASEAN leaders endorsed the ASEAN Economic Blueprint for the establishment of ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. In light of the Blueprint, the roadmaps for capital market development, financial services liberalization and capital account liberalization will be accelerated from 2020 to 2015. To this end, the Working Committees are currently making great efforts in working out implementation plans.
Also at this meeting, the Working Committees reported to the Deputies about the progresses made. The Deputies also discussed on the related issues including the possible revision of the Roadmaps in line with the new timeline of AEC; adopted the progress reports and recommendations to be submitted to the Finance Ministers Meeting for consideration.
The meeting also agreed to submit “Protocol to implement the fourth package of commitments on financial services under the ASEAN framework agreement on services” to the ASEAN Ministers for approval and signing and made announcement on the next negotiation round on 4 April, 2008. The meeting will make recommendations to the Finance Ministers’ Meeting on the enhancement of ASEAN Secretariat’s role in coordinating three Working Committees to ensure the effective implementation.
Regarding the cooperative activities within ASEAN+3 (ASEAN plus China, Korea and Japan), the Meeting exchanged views on the Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI), the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI). Roadmap for ensuring the effective implementation of ASEAN+3 Bond Markets Initiative was also under discussion. On CMI - a cooperation mechanism that assists regional finance, the Deputies was briefed by the taskforce about discussion on its possible specifications. The discussion results will serve as the basic preparation for the ASEAN+3 Finance and Central Bank Deputies’ Meeting to be held on the following day.
The meeting successfully ended with an agreement that the ASEAN Finance and Central Bank Deputies’ Meeting 2009 would be expectedly held in Thailand.