Further liberalization of capital controls and exchange restrictions. - Further strengthening prudential safeguards and risk management capabilities to help manage volatility and compete effectively.
Therefore, a comprehensive approach is needed at the ASEAN level, supported by firm country level implementation. Moreover, in the current context of the on-going global crisis, an accelerated program of financial integration would position ASEAN strategically in the global financial architecture, assist national governments to raise funding to combat recession and counter the emerging balance of payment pressures, and strengthen domestic and regional financial intermediation to support growth.
Pre-conditions. To advance in financial integration, the region needs to further liberalize cross-border capital flows. Despite progress made over the last few years, feedback and views received from the team of experts confirm that capital account restrictions are impediments to cross-border flows. Acknowledging the problem, the AEC Blueprint 2015 has included capital account liberalization in the region’s financial integration program. However, capital account management practices differ significantly across ASEAN countries. Moreover, other factors such as withholding tax arrangements— also constitute barriers to capital account transactions in some cases. In addition, broader policy considerations must be taken into account besides the goal of regional financial integration when each country decides the specifics of its liberalization program. However, while liberalization of cross-border capital flows and tax reform are important for capital market integration under the AEC Blueprint objectives, they are clearly beyond the scope of the ACMF as securities regulators. Therefore, the ACMF proposes that these and other recommendations beyond the remit of the ACMF be further assessed by the relevant authorities such as the Ministries of Finance, Central Banks, stock exchanges and also various working committees under the ASEAN process (especially, the Working Committee on Capital Account Liberalization and the Working Committee on Financial Services Liberalization) to develop and put in place the necessary action plans. As these issues cut across several various parties, the ACMF is of the view that the ASEAN Secretariat as a central body can play a key role in driving and coordinating the implementation of the initiatives to achieve the recommendations under the Plan. Prioritization. The ACMF members recognize that an effective implementation plan must be clearly sequenced and prioritised. The AEC Blueprint envisages three distinct phases. The Implementation Plan provides greater and more detailed description of the actions to be undertaken in these phases, including identifying the actions that can be addressed directly by the ACMF and highlighting others that constitute binding constraints that can only be addressed by Central Banks and Ministries of Finance. A large number of the recommendations specified in the Implementation Plan can be worked upon by the ACMF as early as Phase I as they relate directly to the capital market, while other initiatives such as liberalization of capital account restrictions and reform of tax system may require further coordination and action by the relevant authorities and working committees. Core Strategy. The core strategy in the Plan is a mutual recognition/harmonization process of expanding scope and country coverage, supported by efforts to liberalize capital account restrictions and to reform tax system, the establishment of trading and settlement system alliances and infrastructure, and a strengthened coordination and monitoring processes at both regional and country levels to support implementation.
Given the differing levels of capital market development and readiness amongst ASEAN countries, the mutual recognition initiatives should be implemented bilaterally first and then multilaterally as other countries become ready to join in. In addition, it is often easier to relax restrictions on activities targeted