International Coordination of Currency Policies in East Asia

Abstract

Since the Asian currency crisis in 1997, East Asian countries have been highly cognizant of the importance of international coordination of currency policies. Within the framework of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and Asian Bond Market Initiative (ABMI), policy dialogues now progress pragmatically among ASEAN countries, Japan, China, and South Korea. While the CMI is expected to serve as “crisis management” once a crisis occurs, it is not designed for “crisis prevention” and lacks action to prevent a currency crisis. To prevent and manage possible currency crises, this paper discusses how we should develop the CMI or future policy coordination in the correct direction of “crisis prevention.”

Strengthening of the surveillance over each member country, constituting a Contingent Credit Line (CCL) for the concerned country, and pooling or earmarking foreign reserves should be added to the current CMI framework. Establishment of a neutral and independent organization is also needed in order to implement an effective surveillance process.

Although introducing a common currency basket peg system might be a solution for the coordination failure of choosing exchange rate system and exchange rate policy; inter-group or intra-regional policy coordination will be still essential even in a potential East Asian common currency area. In this sense, this paper proposes introduction of a deviation indicator for each East Asian currency from the AMU in countries' exchange rate fluctuations in order to achieve reliable surveillance and effective policy coordination in exchange rate policy. The monetary authorities in East Asian countries can minimize this deviation indicator to reduce the misalignment of their exchange rates among intra-regional currencies.