Aussie-Asia cooperation down

Aussie-Asia cooperation down

SYDNEY (AFP): Australia's financial cooperation with East Asia has plummeted to a low point, the country's second-highest ranking central bank official warned in remarks reported on Tuesday.

The overall level of financial cooperation with the region was "rather disappointing," the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Stephen Grenville told a Canberra seminar on Monday.

Grenville told the seminar Australia should renew its push to join the ASEAN-plus-three grouping, the Australian Financial Review added.

The group's membership includes the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus Korea, China and Japan.

"The case for Australia to be there is a clear one, and we should state this clearly, as we have done, without wishing to elbow our way into any arrangement in which we are not wanted," Grenville said.

However, Grenville cited as an obstacle to entry perceptions in Asia that Australia was guilty of "boastful blowing of our trumpet during their own misfortune" amid the region's financial crisis in 1997.