Brunei Islamic takes chair of China-Asean bank association

BIBD is the second chair of the association, taking over the rotating chairmanship from CDB in the three-year-old China-Asean IBA during the association’s third council meeting in Beijing from October 16-18.

As with the Asean Summit chairmanship, the China-Asean IBA chairmanship will now be rotated among Asean countries by alphabetical order.

During the council meeting, member banks issued a joint initiative titled “Proposal on the Building of Mechanisms for Experience Sharing and Training Exchanges under the China-Asean Inter-Bank Association Framework”.

Members also discussed how best to respond to global political and economic challenges.

Bank representatives of the 10+1 grouping also conducted the “China-Asean Connectivity Building, Financial Regulation, and Banking Risk Control and Prevention Seminars” in tandem with the meeting. Investments and financing for regional connectivity projects was discussed.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, during the recent 16th Asean-China Summit in Brunei, suggested that China and Asean should broaden the scale and scope of their currency swap arrangement and make better use of the China-Asean IBA.

As well as the BIBD and CDB, the China-Asean IBA also comprises Cambodia’s Canadia Bank, Indonesia’s Bank Mandiri, the Lao Development Bank, Malaysia’s Commerce International Merchant Bank, the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, the Philippines’ BDO Unibank, Singapore’s DBS Bank, Thailand’s Kasikornbank, and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam.

According to BIBD’s 2012 annual report, a bilateral cooperation framework agreement was signed in November 2012 between BIBD and CDB, which focuses on cooperation in areas such as the placement of funds, provision of credit facilities, international trade settlement and project financing.