Form regional capital market now

Form regional capital market now

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): A United Nations agency has proposed the development of an ASEAN regional capital market and a bank to back the rapid expansion of the region, ahead of the agency's regional meeting here this week.

The UN Development Program (UNDP), which yesterday opened a five-day meeting on regional development cooperation (RDC), said ASEAN stock exchanges could work together to help provide cheaper funds for the region's industry to cut dependence on external resources.

ASEAN groups Malaysia with Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei.

"Efforts to develop new financial institutions should also be studied," the UNDP said in a paper on the ASEAN-UNDP development program ahead of its biennial RDC meeting for Asia and the Pacific.

"Proposals to set up an export-import bank, an ASEAN trade and investment corporation, an ASEAN development bank, a banking research and training institute and an information exchange system offer some possibilities," it said.

With deregulation of exchange controls and capital movements, ASEAN should also consider the use of ASEAN currencies for settling intra-regional deals, as well as liberalization of domestic commercial banking operations, the agency said.

UNDP officials said the meeting in Kuala Lumpur would take on a special significance as it coincided with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UN.

This year's RDC meeting will bring together some 200 delegates from the region, as well as key government leaders, policy planners, scholars and UNDP representatives from 31 countries.

Enhanced regional cooperation would benefit the region in terms of finance, food security, tourism, information, the environment commodities, trade, investment flows and human resources development, it said.