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.