ASEAN members agree to submit surveillance data
ASEAN members agree to submit surveillance data
MANILA (Dow Jones): All members of the nine-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, have finally agreed on supplying the necessary data to set up a long-awaited economic mutual surveillance mechanism.
The system, seen as one of the few measures that ASEAN has taken as a group to deal with the region's 15-month-old financial crisis, is aimed at spotting fault lines appearing in Southeast Asian economies.
ASEAN's Deputy Secretary-General Suthad Setboonsarng said that all ASEAN members have now started to submit the necessary data to get the oversight group started.
"It's technically in operation now," Suthad, attending a meeting of ASEAN trade ministers, told a news conference.
Suthad said that ASEAN finance ministers met in Washington over the weekend on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's annual gathering to formally launch the surveillance mechanism.
For some ASEAN members, the surveillance mechanism has been a contentious issue. A few countries have balked at providing the more sensitive data and this has delayed the start up of the oversight group by several months.
The group's task will be not only to monitor a range of economic and financial data, but also to exert peer pressure for corrective action when warning signs flash.
Finance ministers from 12 Asian countries plus the U.S. set up last November a framework for future cooperative action to prevent future financial crises. The germ of the present surveillance mechanism, which is now an ASEAN affair, was contained in that framework.
ASEAN's Suthad said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide technical support to the oversight group, which will be based at the association's secretariat in Jakarta.
It was originally envisaged that the ADB would coordinate the group in its first year of operation.
Suthad said ASEAN finance ministers plan to meet twice a year to review the work of the oversight group, with the first meeting scheduled for March in Hanoi.
Suthad stressed that the ASEAN surveillance group would supplement rather than usurp the oversight role of the International Monetary Fund.
Among the data to be monitored are economic indicators, foreign exchange developments, interest rate policies, capital flows and the fiscal health of ASEAN countries.
Suthad said economic or political measures taken in one country, such as Malaysia's capital controls, would be monitored for their impact on the rest of the bloc.
ASEAN comprises the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.