Ten Years After: Learning from the Financial Crisis

Are Prevention Mechanisms Sufficient to Avoid Another Financial Crisis?

Back to Top

Post-event Statement

Back to Top

Purpose

At this conference, prominent speakers and discussants Japan and abroad discussed the current state of the crisis prevention mechanism within the Asian regional framework, along with its roadmap.

Back to Top

Background

It is ten since the start of the Asian crisis when Thailand was forced into adopting a floating exchange rate, after giving-up the pegged exchange rate regime on 2 July 1997. It is also ten years since the establishment of ASEAN+3 (Japan, People’s Republic of China and Republic of Korea), which is now the main vehicle for regional integration in East Asia. At present, the catchwords among the people in Asia who are eager to promote Asian regional integration are “remember the Asian crisis” or “the Asian crisis was a wake-up call for us”. Clearly, the distress from the Asian crisis triggeed the Asian people and governments to seriously promote Asian regional integration.

In the area of trade, the People's Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, have almost reached free trade agreements (FTAs) with ASEAN, with Japan concluding an EPA Framework agreement with ASEAN in May 2007. Progress has been made toward the establishment of the East Asian FTA which is the target for “ASEAN+3”, and defined as one of the nine medium and long-term targets in November 2002  report of the East Asian Study Group (EASG).  

In the financial area, multilateralization of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) was agreed at the “ASEAN+3” Finance Ministers’ meeting in Kyoto in May 2007. Although these developments are important, a major issue is whether the current crisis prevention mechanism is now sufficient.

This conference addressed this issue and discussed what is the most desirable roadmap to Asian regional integration as a means of crisis prevention mechanism.

At the conference, various arguments from a broad range of discussants were presented on the roadmap to Asian regional integration. Although Japan has been less enthusiastic about Asian regional integration so far among the 13 countries of “ASEAN+3”, we hope the output of this conference will help the Japanese public increase their awareness of the need for Asian regional integration not only for the other Asian countries but also themselves.

Back to Top

Language

English and Japanese with simultaneous translation

Back to Top

Partners

Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Japan