To date, financial integration within ASEAN has been rather limited. This limited
integration is both a symptom of the limited development of key segments of the
financial system within ASEAN countries but also an impediment to that development.
Portfolio capital tends to flow between individual ASEAN countries and markets and
institutions outside the region, particularly those in more advanced countries. ASEAN
debt and equity assets make up about 8.2% of total portfolio assets held within this
region in 2011, a modest share although up considerably from the 2.3% share recorded in
2000 (ADB regional integration database). This reflects the tendency of savers in ASEAN
countries to place their foreign investments in the more developed markets rather than
in the less developed markets within the region. The intra-regional share of portfolio
assets for the Emerging Asia3 region is quite a bit higher, at 28.8%.