An Asean bond portal will create cross-border electronic bond trading as part of the Asean road map to a regional networking to strengthen their financial sectors.

Thailand and Singapore agreed to move ahead with a bilateral cooperation on establishing an electronic bond-trading linkage between the two countries' bond-trading platforms.

Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn said other Asean countries could join the portal when they were ready but should do so before 2015, the target year for the AEC.

Asean finance ministers also discussed ways of strengthening regional cooperation, in order to avoid a repetition of the 1997 economic crisis. The plan to create a portal and the establishment of a new financing-mechanism infrastructure were the most tangible outcomes from the one-day meeting.

Asean ministers agreed to set up a task force to work out the details of establishing a new financing mechanism.

Malaysia's finance minister said he expected future investment in Asean infrastructure projects to reach US$100 billion (Bt3.5 trillion), and that both the public and private sectors "are welcome" to take part in the development.

Infrastructure will help boost domestic economies, because Asean countries understand that they should not continue to be overreliant on exports.

To invite foreign investors, Asean finance ministers will also organise a fourth investors' seminar in Washington this October.

To achieve an AEC, Asean ministers are also committed to concluding the fourth round of negotiations under the Asean framework on services by the end of the year.

Asean also assigned officials to review and identify key financial-sector tracks that could be accelerated to serve the objective of narrowing the development gaps among Asean.

External challenges to the region topped the Asean ministers' agenda.

The International Monetary Fund has warned that the massive inflows and outflows of capital will continue to affect the region for the next three or four years. Thus, the regional networking was part of Asean efforts to prevent the repeat of the crisis that hit the region in 1997.

Chalongphob said he told the other ministers of the Thai government's decision to halt the rise of the baht by introducing the capital control and the hedging option.

"Other countries are interested," he said.

The Singaporean minister also told Chalongphob of Singapore's experience in opening capital accounts, which links with foreign exchange, and promised to send the information to Thailand to share the experience with Bangkok.

 Asked whether Asean was moving towards the direction of the European Monetary Union, Chalongphob noted that the talks had not reached the point where a regional strategy had been formulated.

"It was mainly dialogue, but it is important, because it gives us a chance to study from others," he said.

The idea to create an Asian Monetary Union was floated, but the idea of a single currency was not fully picked up, because some viewed it as too extreme.

"It's possible, but there's a long way to go," he said.

Wichit Chaitrong

The Nation

Chiang Mai