KUALA LUMPUR: The Asean Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) is targeting to roll out the Market Development Programme (MDP) next year, which aims to facilitate the development of member countries through various capacity building programmes.
It aims to enable inclusive participation of member countries in ACMF initiatives, as well as cultivate domestic and regional regulatory expertise that will be recognised globally.
"We are looking to open up training programmes for member countries' personnel to further bridge differences and work towards the vision of the Asean Economic Community (AEC)," said Securities Commission (SC) Malaysia corporate resources executive director Datin Teh Ija Jalil.
"There are resources in the region that we can tap to bridge differences among member countries and foster tighter collaboration among the region's US$3.5 trillion (or RM15 trillion) capital markets," she told Business Times in a recent interview.
"One of the approaches is to open up participation in our training programmes for Asean members. As we learn from each other, we can shorten the learning curve and reap mutual benefits of an integrated AEC," she said in conjunction with the Asean Capital Markets Forum last week.
SC chaired the ACMF, a high-level grouping of Asean capital market regulators created under the auspices of Asean finance ministers to better integrate the region's capital markets.
Also present was Indonesia Financial Services Authority head of department for capital market supervision 2A, Fakhri Hilmi. Malaysia and Indonesia are co-chair of the MDP.
"There are 10 of us. No member country can claim it is an expert in everything. We learn from each other.
The ultimate goal of an integrated AEC is freer movement of goods, people and capital within the member countries," said Fakhri. The region's capital market systems have varying rules and are at different levels of development.
A simple, freer movement of capital will require changes to ways of doing business. For example, the relaxation of foreign investment restrictions will require changes in domestic laws or even constitutional amendments.
In bridging this gap, ACMF was established as early as 2004. Since then, the heads of securities regulators, such as SC and Indonesia Financial Services Authority, have met every year to discuss policies on development and integration of capital markets in the region.
The rationale for Asean members to integrate their capital markets is obvious. Collectively, Asean makes up the world's seventh-largest economy, accounting for nearly three per cent of global gross domestic product at an estimated USD2.4 trillion.
In terms of market value, Asean collectively accounts for about three per cent of the world total. The ACMF also recently announced that the Asean Framework for cross-border offering of collective investment schemes is operational in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.