ASEAN Capital Markets Forum
The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) was established under auspices of the ASEAN Finance Ministers in 2004 to act as a forum for the heads of securities regulators in the ASEAN region to discuss policy issues relating to capital market development. The SC plays a key role in the ACMF, including having chaired the forum for three years from February 2006 - August 2008.

ASEAN and Plus Standards Scheme
A notable achievement of the ACMF is the development of a set of harmonised disclosure standards for multi-jurisdiction offerings of equity and debt securities in ASEAN, namely the ASEAN and Plus Standards Scheme. The Scheme aims to facilitate greater efficiency in cross-border capital-raising and provide cost savings to issuers making multi-jurisdiction offerings within ASEAN.

The Scheme has two levels of standards, comprising a set of common ASEAN Standards (available at the ASEAN secretariat website at http://www.aseansec.org/acmf/introduction.htm), and a set of limited additional standards prescribed by individual members known as the Plus Standards, which are required by some ASEAN jurisdictions due to their individual market practices, laws or regulations.

The Scheme enables issuers in making multi-jurisdictional offerings in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand to comply with the ASEAN Standards, and the prescribed Plus Standards of the relevant jurisdiction(s).

The SC has adopted the Scheme through its Prospectus Guidelines - Equity and Debt (Prospectus Guidelines). Issuers undertaking a cross-border offering to Malaysians are required to comply with the requirements of the Prospectus Guidelines (pdf).

Further information on the ASEAN and Plus Standards Scheme is available here.

ACMF Implementation Plan to Promote the Development of an Integrated Capital Market
The ASEAN Finance Ministers endorsed the ACMF's Implementation Plan to promote the development of an integrated capital market to achieve the objectives of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2015 (Implementation Plan) at its meeting in Thailand on 9 April 2009. The Implementation Plan seeks to achieve the goals of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2015 by offering a comprehensive set of strategic initiatives and formulating specific implementation actions and milestones. The initiatives cover three broad themes:

Under each of the above themes, several strategic components have been identified and developed through a series of consultative meetings organised under the ADB regional technical assistance programme. The development of the Implementation Plan was guided and overseen by a Group of Experts appointed by the ACMF. Capital market experts from the private sector also provided technical input towards the development of the Plan.

The Implementation Plan envisages three distinct phases (2009-2010, 2011-2012, and 2013-2015). The core strategy of the Plan is a mutual recognition and harmonisation process of expanding scope and country coverage. The initial phases of the Plan focus on establishing bilateral arrangements, and subsequently moving towards multilateral arrangements as more ASEAN countries become ready to opt-in. Further, the Plan focuses on liberalisation initiatives for non-retail investors first, with subsequent opening up to retail investors, complemented by an enhanced investor protection regime. The Implementation Plan is available here (pdf format).

ASEAN Finance Ministers' process
The SC plays significant role in supporting the ASEAN Finance Ministers' process. The SC is a member of the various ASEAN Working Committees, namely the Working Committee on Capital Market Development (WC-CMD) and the Working Committee on Financial Services Liberalization (WC-FSL). The WC-CMD is tasked to achieve the overall objective of the Roadmap on ASEAN capital market development; that is to develop deep financial markets and achieve cross-border collaboration among ASEAN capital markets. The WC-FSL is mandated to facilitate the negotiations of financial services liberalization under the ASEAN Framework of Agreement on Services (AFAS), as well as providing facilitation of financial services liberalization by ASEAN with its dialogue partners.

The SC, together with Ministry of Finance Malaysia, currently chair the ASEAN Infrastructure Financing Mechanism (AIFM) taskforce. This taskforce is mandated to create a facilitative environment for infrastructure financing in the region, through promoting best practices in infrastructure development, creating an enabling framework, building regional private sector capacity and markets to enhance risk intermediation for infrastructure financing.

ASEAN + 3 Finance Ministers' Process
The SC also plays a major role in the ASEAN + 3 Finance Ministers' process, by participating actively in the Asian Bond Markets Initiatives (ABMI). The ABMI initiative, which was endorsed by the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers in August 2004, aimed at fostering the development of regional bond markets, to effectively channel regional savings fore regional investments, and prevent maturity and currency mismatches that contributed to the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Towards furthering the development of liquid and well-functioning bond markets and the effective channelling of the region's abundant savings for the increased investment needs, a new ABMI Roadmap was developed and endorsed by the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers in May 2008. Four taskforces were established to look into the following:

The SC currently chairs the Taskforce III that looks into strengthening the regulatory and supervisory framework for bond markets, facilitating collaboration among securities dealers associations and SRO in the region, improving bankruptcy procedures related to bond transactions and promoting application of international accounting and auditing standards.