Regional Monetary Cooperation: Is East Asia Following the European Model?

The grim experience of the East Asian economic crisis gave rise to intensified efforts to strengthen regional financial and monetary cooperation in East Asia. Since the Chiang Mai Initiative of May 2000, and the subsequent completion of various bilateral swap agreements, these efforts have clearly gained renewed momentum. “What was impressive was the emphasis with which they said it is important, we start working on it, we need it, it is necessary”, says Deutsche Bank’s CEO, Rolf-E. Breuer, attending the IIF’s 2001 International Monetary Conference.
The major, immediate aims of the region are preventing financial crises in the future and achieving exchange rate stability. However, the Chiang Mai Initiative and the ASEAN + 3 process can also be regarded as first steps to create a much deeper financial and monetary integration in East Asia. European monetary integration can certainly not be regarded as a blueprint for Asia. Yet it can provide important experiences of the economic and political challenges of monetary cooperation and integration.
The symposium will bring together researchers and practitioners to address major questions relevant for the cooperation process. Can monetary cooperation be achieved between developed and developing economies, and which macroeconomic and structural issues have to be tackled first? What are the main political obstacles to financial cooperation in East Asia on the regional as well as on the global level? What are the long term perspectives for monetary integration in Asia, and what lessons can Asia draw from the European experience of more than 40 years of monetary integration?