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Asean finance ministers

begin two-day meeting

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: Southeast Asian finance ministers began a two-day meeting here on Saturday to discuss an Asian support fund and ways to improve economic surveillance to sustain the region's rebound from financial crisis.

The ministers from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam met over breakfast at the posh international convention centre before starting formal talks.

Radolfo Severino, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), joined the group.

The meeting came a day after finance and central bank deputies from Asean as well as China, Japan and South Korea reached a landmark consensus on the establishment of an Asian support fund to help them battle future financial turmoil.

Japan proposed such a facility shortly after the 1997 financial crisis humbled the region's high-flying economies, and it received the backing of Asean.

The idea however never took off because of opposition from the United States which feared it would undermine the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Pengiran Maidin Haji Hashim of Brunei, who chaired the deputies' meeting, said the ministers were expected to touch on the subject during their weekend conference.

He said further discussions are to be held when the finance ministers from Asean and their dialogue partners meet in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on May 6 on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual governors' meeting.

Officials said the ministers would also discuss a surveillance report on how each of their economies performed as well as ways to improve the availability of data and which data should be required aside from broad macro-economic indicators.

The ministers are to go through the report from each country as part of a peer review mechanism designed to spot potential problems and bring them in line before they erupt into a crisis, senior officials here said.

The ministers will call on Sultan Hassnal Bolkiah and meet with senior officials from the IMF, World Bank and ADB later Saturday.

The three financial institutions which have provided financial aid to the region during the crisis have praised its faster than expected rebound from the turmoil. But they also cautioned against slackening on reforms, saying internal and external risks still remained.ÑAFP