Asian bond market vital for new Asian unity: Asian leaders
TOKYO - Asian leaders today agreed a regional bond market that would be immune to currency speculation and capital flight is vital to their prosperity.
"The new partnership in Asia will not achieve its objective if the capital and liquidity problems in Asia remain pending," Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a Tokyo symposium on the "Genesis of a New Asian Order."
"The question I asked myself was what would be the appropriate financial instrument to break the vicious circle underlying this problem of liquidity? My answer is the Asian bond," he said.
"The establishment of the Asian Bond will bring about benefits to every Asian country and Japan can use this financial instrument to explore a new relationship with the rest of Asia," he said.
Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are the participating countries.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the 1997-98 currency crisis was "just a waste of our energy and time" while underscoring the importance of having bonds denominated in local currencies rather than the US dollar.
"We need to re-think whether we can depend on the US dollar or not ... initially yes, we have to depend on the US dollar but we should move away from the US dollar," Dr Mahathir said.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said she also agreed Asia "should move away from dependence on the US dollar."
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