Asian ministers to discuss $1b Asian Bond Fund
Asian ministers to discuss $1b Asian Bond Fund
Michael Mathes, Agence France-Presse, Bangkok
Ministers from 18 Asian nations will meet in northern Thailand from Friday for talks expected to focus on the US$1 billion Asian Bond Fund, an initiative of Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The three-day Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), in its second year, will be held in the northern city of Chiang Mai and hosted by Thaksin, the forum's founder.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-Kwan are confirmed as attending, along with mainly foreign ministers from India, Pakistan, Japan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Qatar and 10 Southeast Asian nations.
"The Asian Bond Fund is one of the very important issues to be taken up there," deputy foreign ministry spokesman Itti Ditbanjong told AFP, adding that the Chiang Mai Declaration on development of the fund will be issued on Sunday.
On June 2, Thaksin announced the highly-anticipated scheme under which 11 Asian economies -- Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand -- will focus on investing in regional government bonds.
Thaksin has said he wants the fund to promote regional financial stability and minimize the risk of a repeat of the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis.
On Thursday he said the response had been so positive that a second Asian fund could be set up at the ACD to include India and several Middle Eastern countries who have expressed interest in joining the scheme.
"It may be we can set up another fund at this meeting if many countries agreed on how to develop Asian debt instruments," he told reporters.
International credit agency Standard and Poor's last week said the Asian Bond Fund would increase co-operation among the region's monetary authorities and develop Asia's capital markets.
"The creation of the fund is a positive development in regional financial co-operation and Standard and Poor's applauds this as a tangible step in the evolution of a regional bond market," said its regional head Cecile Saavedra.
Central banks in Japan, the Philippines and Singapore have announced separately that they will each provide US$100 million to the fund, while Australia's reserve bank will contribute $50 million.
The ACD is being held on the heels of this week's meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers in Cambodia followed by the ASEAN Regional Forum, a security grouping encompassing 23 nations and blocs.
At the Phnom Penh meeting, the ministers grappled with tough issues including North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Myanmar's political turmoil and the war on terror.
While there is no fixed agenda at the ACD, analysts believe it will veer away from the political issues that dominated the ARF and instead focus on development and economic themes.
"I'm sure the issues will be lighter than at the ARF," said Prapat Thepchatree, director of the Center for International Policy Studies at Bangkok's Thammasat University.
"There are several issues of cooperation that (ACD members) would like to move on this year, namely poverty alleviation, human resources development, science and technology, energy, transportation and communication," he added.
Itti confirmed such issues as well as tourism, the environment, and e-commerce are on the ACD agenda for the main dialogue set for Sunday.