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BEIJING - East Asia's efforts to institutionalize regional financial cooperation gained momentum as the ASEAN Plus Three Macroeconomic Research Office started operations on Monday, signaling a concrete step toward the formation of a potential Asia Monetary Fund.
Based in Singapore, the Macroeconomic Research Office, or AMRO, is a new regional macroeconomic surveillance and crisis management unit, launched by the ministries of finance, central banks and monetary authorities of China, Japan, South Korea and the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Wei Benhua, a former deputy head of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange, arrived in Singapore on Monday to take his helm as AMRO's first director.
"The move will boost the confidence of ASEAN Plus Three countries in preventing and combating financial crises," Wei told China Daily in an exclusive interview. "It's like a health check - the agency could examine potential risks to those economies and we could prescribe recipes to cure the illness when the need arises."
Armed with a $120 billion reserve pool, AMRO will offer emergency US dollar relief to any ASEAN Plus Three country to manage liquidity problems when financial turmoil arises, Wei said.
Economists hailed it as a fruitful effort by the ASEAN Plus Three countries that paves the way for a pilot Asian Monetary Fund (AMF), or the Asian version of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that could provide a regional alternative to the global currency regulator.
"It could be a concrete and exploratory step toward the establishment of a potential AMF," Wang Qing, chief economist of Morgan Stanley Asia, told China Daily on Saturday.
It should greatly strengthen the capacity of ASEAN Plus Three countries in the prevention and management of potential financial crises in the future, he said.
AMRO monitors macroeconomic trends, assesses financial vulnerability and provides assistance on policy recommendations from the ASEAN Plus Three countries to safeguard regional financial stability, said Wei.
It will also act to prevent financial crises through the supervision and execution of funds from AMRO's reserve pool, according to Wei.
Wei said AMRO will provide contracting parties with financial loan support that is below 20 percent of the lending pool with no extra conditions attached at a time without crisis. However, 80 percent of any swaps approved will be subjected to IMF conditions.
"There is quite a long way ahead to form the AMF," said Xia Bin, China's central bank adviser. "However, this organization could help project an 'Asian voice' in the international financial arena, supplementing the IMF's function, and might challenge US influence in Asia," Xia added.