Indonesia Leads the First Meeting on the Financial Line in the 2023 ASEAN Chairmanship

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

JAKARTA - Indonesia chaired the first meeting on the financial channel with the theme ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth in a series of agendas for the 2023 ASEAN Chair.

The meeting entitled ASEAN+3 Task Force (TF) with the participation of China, Japan and South Korea seeks to encourage ASEAN to play an active role, offer ideas and solutions to strengthen economic recovery and make Southeast Asia an engine of sustainable world growth.

Head of the Bureau of Communication and Information Services of the Ministry of Finance Rahayu Puspasari said the first session of the meeting focused on developing a financial stability safety net architecture in the region.

"Including the possibility of establishing new facilities by the developments and dynamics of global economic challenges", he said in a written statement on Monday, February 6.

Furthermore, the second session discussed strengthening the Chiang Mai Initiative Multi-lateralization (CMIM) mechanism. Meanwhile, CMIM is one of the existing financial stability security facilities, built through a cooperation agreement between ASEAN+3 member countries.

"Through this discussion, it is hoped that the short-term liquidity financing facility offered by CMIM will always be ready to answer the needs of members, with a better access mechanism", he said.

Then, the third session discussed the ASEAN+3 Future Initiative. It was stated that this agenda tried to explore new ASEAN+3 initiatives that had been discussed in recent years through the establishment of a Working Group (WG).

Later, there will be a follow-up of innovative financing as a reference for infrastructure and initiatives to strengthen financial resilience to climate and natural disasters.

"Indonesia also proposes that ASEAN+3 can conduct discussions and deepen the development of household debt and sustainable finance databases", he said.

Rahayu added ASEAN+3 countries must continue to be aware of the risk of a weakening global economy which has been estimated by international institutions and various global forums.

"To overcome the challenge of this weakening economy, ASEAN+3 continues to make efforts to strengthen the regional economy and take advantage of international economic and financial cooperation", he stressed.

For information, the ASEAN+3 Task Force meeting was held on February 2-3, 2023 in Nusa Dua Bali. This meeting was the opening of a series of agendas for Indonesia's ASEAN Chairmanship in the Financial Channel.