On Monday, ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn said a single currency and monetary union for the ASEAN region shouldn’t be a priority at the moment as a consequence of many other agenda items requiring attention.
During a public lecture at Universitas Pelita Harapan in Tangerang, Banten, he stressed that recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic is currently the highest priority in ASEAN.
“I believe that the concept of monetary union has been debated for twenty years. “Of course, we still have a long way to go because we have different priorities,” he said.
According to Hourn, other than recovering from the pandemic, other current priorities include ASEAN connectivity, the blue economy agenda and the event of intra-ASEAN trade.
“These are real priorities. When it involves monetary union, there are still many uncertainties,” he said.
Nevertheless, Indonesia, the present ASEAN chair, has proposed the event of regional payment connections to facilitate cross-border payments within the region.
The central banks and financial authorities of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore have signed a memorandum of understanding to extend regional cross-border remittances. For this purpose, it’s planned to attach the QR code systems of 5 countries.
Since the signing of the Regional Payment Connection Agreement in November 2022, only Thailand has been using the cross-border QRIS system.
