SINGAPORE – Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and his fellow finance ministers plus the central bank governors of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) opened here today (Thursday) their annual meetings meant to strengthen cooperation on sustaining growth and boosting financial resilience and innovation in the region.
The ASEAN finance ministers will also be meeting with investors, project developers and advisors in this island country to find new ways of mobilizing private capital for infrastructure development in the region, which is now the world’s sixth largest economy and collectively the third largest in Asia.
Chaired this year by Singapore, the 2018 ASEAN Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ and Related Meetings on April 5-6 will also focus discussions on enhancing the region’s resilience to natural disasters as well as cybersecurity risks.
Dominguez is expected to take part in today’s (Thursday’s) 8th World Bank-Singapore Infrastructure Summit ahead of the ASEAN Finance Ministers’ and the ASEAN Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Joint Meetings.
He will also join his fellow finance ministers and ASEAN central bank governors tomorrow (Friday) at their regular meeting with the US-ASEAN Business Council to discuss innovations in digital finance, capital markets development and insurance development.
With the theme “A Resilient and Innovative ASEAN,” this year’s finance ministers and central bank governors meetings will lay down the regional bloc’s development agenda to sustain the remarkable progress it has achieved since its founding 51 years ago.
The World Bank estimates that infrastructure needs of emerging economies in Asia require around US$26 trillion until 2030, including US$3.4 trillion- worth of programs to mitigate the effects of climate change.
As a leading example of implementing successful investments in infrastructure via the government’s ambitious “Build Build Build” program, the Philippines—as represented by Dominguez–is expected to share the lessons learned by the
Duterte administration on de-risking investments in this sector, while Singapore, as this year’s chair, will discuss its vision for infrastructure spending in the region.
The Philippines chaired the ASEAN last year during its golden anniversary, and the 2017 sessions of the region’s finance ministers and central bank governors were held on April 6-7 at the Shangri-La Mactan Resort in Lapu-Lapu City.
As chairperson of the ASEAN finance ministers meeting at that time, Dominguez had called on ASEAN’s decision makers to implement policies that would allow the sharing of resources within the regional bloc and make growth inclusive among its peoples to help counter the effects of emerging protectionist policies and a possible trade war between the United States and China.
Dominguez said the ASEAN should learn from the world’s experience with globalization, which “has been a great source of increasing wealth, but a very poor tool for spreading it.”
He also said the ASEAN should prepare its workforce to adapt to changes brought about by “disruptive technology,” referring to innovations that create new markets and jobs but eventually displaces existing ones, so that the region could “ride out the tide of change” while coping with the rising popularity of protectionism and other “inward-looking” trade policies.
The ASEAN was established on Aug. 8, 1967 in Bangkok with five founding members—the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. It has since expanded to include Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, the Lao Republic, Myanmar and Cambodia.
It established the ASEAN Economic Community, which officially commenced on Dec. 31, 2015, to create a single market and production base within the region through the free flow of goods, skilled labor, services and investments among its 10 member-states.
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