From oil to aging: seminars tackle economic challenges

• Pages: 290-291

Page 290

The IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Singapore offered more than 30 forums at which delegates and representatives of civil society organizations and private companies, as well as IMF and World Bank officials, debated a number of thorny economic and social issues.

The 2006 Program of Seminars, September 16-18, covered such topics as oil prices, aging populations, Asian integration, and corporate governance. Highlights of some of the seminars follow:

Asia: trade and financial integration. Over the past decade, greater integration of trade and investment has helped Asia reestablish itself as the most dynamic and rapidly growing region in the world. But its capital markets remain fragmented: Asian companies still raise capital and invest their surplus savings in industrial countries rather than in the region.

Session moderator John Lipsky (IMF First Deputy Managing Director) noted that the "tipping point" had been reached for closer regional integration of domestic financial sectors. Among the benefits of greater financial integration, said Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz (Bank Negara Malaysia) and Vice Minister Hiroshi Watanabe (Japanese finance ministry), are improved growth prospects through the two-way links between integration of financial and production sectors, more efficient funding and lower transaction costs, and lower risk through more stable access to capital and more diverse allocation. But, to realize these benefits, Asia needs to strengthen and harmonize financial infrastructures and strengthen arrangements for regional surveillance and liquidity support to maintain economic stability and minimize the risks of cross-border spillovers and contagion.

From a policy practitioner's standpoint, Governor Pridiyathorn Devakula (Bank of Thailand) noted the need for regional financing mechanisms, including, in the short term, efficient payments and settlements systems and trade financing instruments, and a larger role for regional banks.

Watanabe stressed the importance of regional coordination but advised against efforts to standardize the systems. Zeti cautioned that the diverse region must move at its own pace, a view shared by Joaquín Almunia, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs. He noted that closer European financial and monetary integration had spurred corporate reforms and innovation, but the process had...