RP wants Asian energy, finance cooperation

RP wants Asian energy, finance cooperation

Reuters, Tokyo

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called on Tuesday for Asian countries to cooperate in the energy field and said an embryonic common regional currency could be in place within a decade.

Such linkages could help turn East Asia into the economic powerhouse of the 21st century, she told a conference in Tokyo.

"It's possible to move toward the European model. Now, whether it will be done in 10 years is another question.

"But I believe that in 10 years we may be already in a regime of certain common regional currencies," she said when asked if Asia should emulate Europe's creation of a single currency.

Arroyo said the so-called Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), under which 13 Asian central banks are weaving a web of currency swap agreements, offered the region valuable additional protection against a repeat of the sort of financial crisis that wrought havoc on the region's economies in 1997 and 1998.

"The landscape of globalisation is littered with quicksand," Arroyo said. "Global capital is suspect."

The CMI marked the first step toward much deeper financial and monetary cooperation in East Asia, said Arroyo, who is on a four- day visit to Japan.

"In future we can explore the feasibility of having a common basket of currencies," she said without going into detail.

Arroyo, speaking at a conference on Asia's future, noted that the European Union, 12 of whose 15 members have adopted the euro as their single currency, had its roots in the European Coal and Steel Community formed after World War Two.

In the same vein, energy and natural resources could be a catalyst for closer regional cooperation in Asia, she said.

She proposed that governments work together in four fields: common oil stockpiles, environmental quality control on oil products, interconnecting power systems and the use of natural gas.

Environmental cooperation would have to include China because it was such a big energy producer and user, Arroyo said.

"Our cooperation must be underlined by the absence of borders," she said.