Asean leaders shrug off pollution to focus on regional issues

Bangkok: Thailand will not cancel the 23rd Asean Finance Ministers’ Meeting in Chiang Rai this week despite that province and others in the North being in the grip of severe air pollution for several consecutive days, an official at the Finance Ministry said.

The regional ministers will highlight cooperation in using more local currency for trade settlement and investment, cross-border electronics payment, digital-asset oversight and cybersecurity in financial transactions.

“Everything required for the meeting has been well arranged so we can’t cancel it,” Lavaron Sangsnit, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office, said yesterday.

The Asean Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting runs tomorrow through Friday.

About 300 representatives from the 10 Asean countries plus East Asia and the US will attend, along with business leaders from Asean and Europe. The ministry had not expected the pollution in the northern provinces to worsen in the past few days, the result of a spreading forest fire.

He said closed-door meetings would shield the participants from exposure to the pollution and air purifiers would be installed in the meeting rooms.

Thailand is chairing the 10-nation Asean this year and is pushing the theme “Advancing Partnership for Sustainability”.

The Asean ministers will discuss three key areas of cooperation: connectivity, sustainability and resilience, said Lavaron.

Asean aims to implement connectivity in financing, payment and services to facilitate cross-border electronic payments.

It will also promote local-currency settlements to reduce dependence on the US dollar and lower exchange-rate risks from swings in the value of the dollar.

Cybersecurity will be raised with an eye to training Asean officials to deal with online threats to the financial sector.