SBV Governor attends ASEAN Central Bank Governors’ and Finance Ministers' Meetings

Governor Nguyen Van Giau of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) attended the 5th ASEAN Central Bank Governors' Meeting (ACGM) and the 13th ASEAN Finance Ministers' Meeting (AFMM) in Pattaya, Thailand, from April 7 to April 9. The meetings were held prior to the the East Asia Summit (EAS) with the aim of strengthening the region’s coorperation, discussing the practical regional and global economic situation, and finding out the measures to cope with the current global financial and economic crisis.

At this meeting, the Governors discussed the regional and global economic situation and outlook as well as the measures to cope with the current crisis with the representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Governors noted that the region’s fundmental macro-economic condition remained sound but the impact of the global crisis on ASEAN was more seiours than expected, hence requiring all the ASEAN countries to take unprecedented and coordinated measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis and prevent economic downturn. Although all the countries have taken several fiscal measures and expansionary monetary policies in their domestic stimulus schemes, the risks remain considerable ahead. In this context, the Governors noted that this is a good opportunity to further cooperation in the financial and monetary fields and for greater participation of the central banks in regional intergration in order to solve common issues. The 5th ACGM focused on several topics related to financial and monetary cooperation in the region such as financial service liberalization, capital account liberalization, the plan for promotion of regional monetary and financial intergration, etc.

One of the focuses of the meeting was to discuss several issues related to the Chiang Mai Multibilateral Initiative (CMIM), aiming at the realization of CMIM in as soon as possible under the guidance of the ASEAN Summit heldrecently in Hua Hin, Thailand. This is one of the important aspects of cooperation of ASEAN+3 in order to strengthen mutual assistance in the region in face of short-term liquidity problem. As expected, all the countries will do their best to reach agreement on key issues of CMIM before the Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank to be convened in Bali, Indonesia, in early May this year.

As planned, the 6th ACGM will be held in Vietnam in 2010 when Vietnam undertakes the role of the ASEAN Chairman.

My Huong

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