ASEAN+3 Finance and Central Bank Deputies’ Meeting held online

The ASEAN+3 Finance and Central Bank Deputies’ Meeting (AFCDM+3) was held via video conference on August 5 under the chair of Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Xuan Ha, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong, and Japanese partners.

General view of the meeting. (Photo: Vietnam+)
General view of the meeting. (Photo: Vietnam+)

The important conference was part of a series of ASEAN and ASEAN+3 financial cooperation events hosted by Vietnam in 2020, aiming to prepare the content for the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting, scheduled for September.

At the meeting, financial and bank officials of ASEAN member states and three partner countries (China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan) discussed regional financial cooperation initiatives such as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) and the Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI); looked into new initiatives on financial cooperation in ASEAN+3, and adopted the medium-term policies and work plans of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO).

Delegates welcomed the progress made in continuing to finalise the CMIM Agreement to meet the new requirements of the financial market and go in accordance with the coordination mechanism between CMIM and the IMF, towards the goal of making CMIM a useful tool to complement the regional and global financial security network.

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Xuan Ha at the conference. (Photo: Vietnam+)

They highly appreciated AMRO’s efforts, as an international organisation, to actively implement macroeconomic monitoring activities and support countries to strengthen their policy-making capacity in the face of human and budget constraints. The meeting also approved AMRO’s Budget and Personnel Plan for 2021 and the AMRO Director’s 2019 Performance Assessment Report.

The Deputies also spoke highly of the ABMI Working Group’s implementation progress and results in researching and improving the environment to attract investors, developing new investment tools, completing the legal framework, developing infrastructure for the bond market, and implementing technical assistance to develop the domestic bond market of member economies.

Japanese partners co-chair the event. (Photo: Vietnam+)

They considered the progress of implementing new initiatives under the Strategic Directions of ASEAN+3 Finance Process, including initiatives to promote the use of local currency for trade and investment payments, as well as payment connectivity; develop a comprehensive initiative on infrastructural finance; design support tools to help members better deal with macroeconomic structural issues; harmonise cooperation initiatives on climate finance such as the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF); and strengthen policy coordination to tap the benefits of technological advances in minimising financial risk.

In addition to the usual agenda, the Deputies held a special discussion on strategy, action and policy space against the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to discuss policy measures to cope with the impact of the disease, and to update and evaluate the macroeconomic prospects of countries in the region.