ASEAN ministers told to act quickly on any crisis signs
ASEAN ministers told to act quickly on any crisis signs
SINGAPORE (AFP): ASEAN finance ministers will have to act swiftly on feedback received from the group's surveillance system devised to prevent a repetition of the regional financial crisis, a top official said Thursday.
The surveillance system, housed in the Jakarta-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat and supported primarily by the Asian Development Bank, will be based on first-hand data gathered from ASEAN economies and analyzed by experts.
"It depends on the ability of the finance ministers on how effectively they apply peer pressure" and act decisively on the data, ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino told a meeting of the ASEAN Business Forum.
The forum comprises the cream of the region's business community to promote intra-ASEAN networking.
Severino said that although ASEAN worked on the principle of consensus, he hoped that member governments recognized how important it was to respond quickly to economic problems before they grew out of control.
"I hope they have learned the lesson ... there is no mechanism which can force governments to do what they don't want to do but regional action can help encourage and support governments to keep to their understanding which they have given to one another," he said.
Severino said the contagion effect of the regional financial crisis which erupted in mid-1997 with the devaluation of the Thai baht demonstrated that "economic troubles of one country is the economic troubles of all."
ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Severino said that "of top importance" in ASEAN's response to the challenges of financial upheaval and globalization had been its decision not only to persist in regional economic integration but to accelerate it.
ASEAN is presently embarking on a free trade plan under which by 2002 the products of the grouping's key economies will be subject to maximum tariffs of five percent.