Speaker:

Dr Hoe Ee Khor
Chief Economist, ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO)

Date & Time:

Thursday, 21 July 2022
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm (Singapore Time)
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Video recording and PPT slides:

Please visit EAI’s YouTube channel for a video recording of the lecture. For the PPT slides, please click here.

Abstract:

The Asian financial crisis (AFC) is arguably one of those defining events of history that fundamentally changed the course of developments for many countries, especially those in the ASEAN+3 region. For those who lived through the crisis, the AFC was a highly traumatic and humiliating event. It devastated the economies of the region and led to political upheavals and change in governments. For a while, the prospects were bleak and many observers had written off the region for the following decade or more. To the surprise of many, the region bounced back and grew rapidly to become one of the most dynamic and prosperous regions of the world.

The AFC served as a rude wake-up call to policymakers in the ASEAN+3 region of the dramatic changes in the global financial landscape that were driven by trends that originated in the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s.  These trends had led to the liberalisation of capital accounts and financial markets in the United States and Europe and unleashed financial flows to developing economies across the world in search of higher yields, often with disastrous consequences to those economies which were lured by the cheap money.

The AFC highlighted the imperative for stronger regional financial cooperation in economic surveillance, policymaking and crisis management. Since then, ASEAN+3 economies have leaped forward in deepening regional financial cooperation through strengthening the region’s financial safety net, enhancing economic and financial surveillance and developing local currency bond markets.

Today, despite the massive shock from the COVID-19 pandemic, the ASEAN+3 economies have remained resilient and are bouncing back relatively unscathed, thanks to the strong economic fundamentals, sizeable policy cushions and ample foreign reserves, as well as prudent policymaking over the past two and a half decades.

Against this backdrop, the speaker will review the key causes of the AFC, discuss the costs and scarring effects of the AFC, followed by the lessons of the crisis and the reforms undertaken at the national, regional and global levels. He will also discuss the impetus the AFC gave to regional financial cooperation and to international financial cooperation and IMF reforms. Finally, he will discuss the readiness of the region to face the new risks and challenges in the post-pandemic era.

About the Speaker:

Dr Khor oversees AMRO’s work on macroeconomic and financial market surveillance of its member economies, which comprise 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China (including Hong Kong), Japan and South Korea.

A renowned economist with more than 35 years of experience, prior to joining AMRO, Dr Khor was Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He also served as Assistant Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) from 2001 to 2009 where he was responsible for economic research, monetary policy, macro-financial surveillance and international relations.