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.