Cross-border regulation of securities markets in ASEAN

• Main Author: WAN, Wai Yee
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Securities markets; capital markets; Asia; ASEAN; Asian Studies; Securities Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/3269; https://search.library.smu.edu.sg/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma99347912702601&context=L&vid=65SMU_INST:SMU_NUI&lang=en&search_scope=Everything&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&isFrbr=true&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,Research%20handbook%20on%20Asian%20financial%20law&sortby=date_d&facet=frbrgroupid,include,9059760129920654919&offset=0
• Institution: Singapore Management University

How does cross-border regulation of securities markets work in Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)? How closely are the securities markets coordinated within ASEAN from the regulatory perspective? What is the optimal regulatory model of integration of securities markets that balances the economic benefits of integration and yet minimizes the risks of contagion and advances the state’s national goals? The issues posed by these questions are important against the background of strong growth of the Asian economies and Asian capital markets, and how the ASEAN states can take advantage of such growth to facilitate economic growth. According to the data and projections by the Conference Board, China’s growth (measured in Gross Domestic Product) in the next decade (2019–2028) is 3.6 per cent, with India at 5.7 per cent, and the rest of Asia’s emerging countries at 4.8 per cent. This is well ahead of the projections for the rest of the world at 2.9 per cent and all mature economies at 1.9 per cent. Between 2007 and 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community was collectively the third largest in Asia and sixth largest in the world. The issue of deepening capital markets coordination and integration within the region has its roots in the Asian financial crisis of 1997. In particular, this crisis demonstrated that there was an urgent need to deepen the equity and debt-based financing in the securities markets, as important alternatives to bank-based financing which was seriously disrupted during the Asian financial crisis. In 2003, the ASEAN leaders agreed to form the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to establish ASEAN as a single market and production base by 2020, which was subsequently advanced to 2015, to take into account the competition posed by China and India. The AEC Blueprint 2015, adopted by the ASEAN leaders, provided, among others, the goal of achieving freer flows of capital within ASEAN.