The global financial and economic crises represent an unprecedented challenge to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) community. Confidence in the architecture of the global economy and its institutions has been shaken resulting in a climate of global uncertainty and vulnerability. More cooperation between Asia and Europe is required in order to build a stronger international monetary and financial system.
The ASEM community now boasts twelve members in the G20 and represents over 60% of global population and over 55% of global GDP. This ensures that the decisions made within and between Asia and Europe have major effects on the global economy, impacting global economic stability and potential growth. The declaration by heads of state at the 8th ASEM Summit in Brussels called for a push "towards more effective global economic governance". It is evident that major opportunities exist in the current climate to create greater economic and financial co-operation, while improving existing coping mechanisms. This push towards greater co-operation was reiterated by the G20 leaders at the Seoul Summit, with heated debates on mechanisms such as Quantitative Easing and Global Monetary Imbalances, they warned that "uncoordinated policy actions will only lead to worse outcomes for all".
Asia and Europe have much to share with one another. The EU provides the benchmark for deepened regional economic and financial integration and the challenges and vulnerabilities that come with that. Asia, though not as deeply integrated, has experienced growth in spite of two major financial crises in just over a decade, thus illustrating a certain level of resilience of Asian economies and their important role in supporting global recovery. According to Asian Development Bank President, Haruhiko Kuroda, "the region [Asia] will make increasingly valuable contributions to global stability and global prosperity." Europe also faces common challenges that call for greater and more structured collaboration. At the same time, a common understanding of opportunities, risk potentials and promising projects for building more resilience and prosperity in Asia and Europe seems to be lacking.
As part of a response to these calls for effective global economic and financial governance ASEF, the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the University of Ljubljana (UL), the Europe-Asia Policy Forum (EUforAsia) and Prospex will jointly organize a research project including a collaborative workshop. Involving high level experts and stakeholders, the project aims at generating innovative and informed recommendations on how to prepare for future crises, identifying vulnerabilities and activities for more extensive cooperation.
The workshop will specifically focus on the financial sphere and monetary cooperation in both regions. It will discuss future monetary regimes, regional financial integration mechanisms, and asset- and capacity-building activities. The workshop will use foresight methodologies, integrating expertise from different fields to identify ideas for strategies and policies that help Asia and Europe to shape the future and mitigate future crises.
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| Concept paper_Impact of theCrisis on Regional Economic and Financial Integration in Asia andEurope.pdf | 295.68 KB |
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