Nissan Seminar: Regional Financial Arrangements in East Asia (Dr Yoichi Nemoto, Hitotsubashi)

Thursday 23 October, 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Pavilion Room, 4th Floor, Gateway Building, St Antony's College

Convener(s): Professor Hugh Whittaker and Professor Kristi Govella

nemoto

Regional Financial Arrangements (RFAs) in East Asia emerged in response to the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997–1998, which revealed significant vulnerabilities in the region’s financial safety nets. In 2000, the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) was launched, establishing a network of bilateral swap arrangements (BSAs) among ASEAN+3 member economies (China, Japan, and South Korea). While this arrangement represented a pioneering step toward regional financial cooperation, its design was limited by the absence of a dedicated economic surveillance mechanism and a lack of institutional capacity. Drawing lessons from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008–2009, regional policymakers—ministries of finance and central banks—pursued institutional enhancements to strengthen the resilience and credibility of East Asia’s RFAs. This presentation examines these enhancements, the principal challenges and strategic imperatives confronting East Asian RFAs in the contemporary global financial order, and the interaction between regional mechanisms and broader shifts in the international political economy, including the prospective reorientation of US economic policy toward East Asia.

Yoichi Nemoto is a Lecturer in the School of International and Public Policy at Hitotsubashi University. He was Director of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) between 2012 and 2016, where he contributed to the work of establishing the ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and Korea) region’s macroeconomic surveillance office, building AMRO’s surveillance capacity and transforming it into an international organization. Since 2018, he has taught international finance and regional financial arrangements (CMIM) in East Asia at Hitotsubashi’s Asian Public Policy Program, which aims to train young public officials from Asian economies. He was a Professor of the School of Public Policy between 2018 and 2023. Dr Nemoto graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from the University of Tokyo and holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University.