Specifically, the ASEAN Roadmap on Capital Account Liberalization, launched in 2003, aims to gradually achieve a freer flow of capital over the medium-term. Malaysia has since progressively further liberalised its rules for foreign exchange transactions culminating in the removal of most of the rules in April 2005. Strengthened regional financial cooperation During the 1997/1998 crisis, Asia did not come together to collaboratively and cumulatively act to contain the crisis and subsequently to facilitate its resolution. Perhaps, it was due to the nature of the crisis, its severity on the financial markets and the economies. Domestic stability had to be first restored before time could be taken to formulate a holistic crisis management solution. The instability in the currency markets lasted for about one and a half years. There was also no entity in the region during that period that provided any authoritative assessment on whether the programmes that were subsequently being implemented would in fact produce the desired outcomes. While efforts to strengthen the domestic economies and the financial systems will continue, this has now being reinforced by the improved regional surveillance including on cross border financial flows, and by institutional arrangements that would contribute towards crisis containment and management. The regional cooperative efforts going forward will continue to gain momentum. These efforts should not be seen as attempting to substitute but rather as efforts to complement the existing international arrangements.
Zeti Akhtar Aziz: ASEAN – a dynamic region with diverse strengths Speech by Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the International Symposium “Ten Years After the Asian Currency Crisis: Future Challenges for the Asian Economies and Financial Markets”, hosted by the Center for Monetary Cooperation in Asia (CeMCoA), Bank of Japan, Tokyo, 22 January 2007. *  *  *  Ten years after the crisis, ASEAN stands out as a dynamic region with diverse strengths. With a growing population of over 550 million, ASEAN remains one of the fastest growing regions in the world (2005: 5.6%; world: 4.9%). The combined GDP of the ASEAN economies is expected to exceed USD 1 trillion in 2007. This growth has been extensive and includes all the developing economies in the group. The ASEAN economies have always been highly open economies, with total trade accounting for more than 130 percent of GDP and the value of trade flows now exceeding USD 1 trillion. In view of this high degree of openness, ASEAN has also always been vulnerable to external developments. The ASEAN economies have however demonstrated, time and again, their capacity to rebound from adverse shocks, and to do so within a short period of time. While the 1997 – 1998 crisis was devastating, most ASEAN economies were able to restore stability and resume growth just after a year. ASEAN has also continued to weather other both regional and international shocks that have since occurred.