The Bank for International Settlements has announced initiatives to deepen its relationship with its Asian shareholders.

These steps were endorsed by Asia Pacific central bank governors attending a meeting of the BIS Asian Consultative Council in Shanghai yesterday. These initiatives will be closely coordinated with the the BIS member central banks in the region and represent the culmination of an intensive consultation process with them, it notes.

The initiatives include: a three-year research program on monetary and financial issues in Asia, to be undertaken in close cooperation between the BIS and Asia Pacific central banks; an expansion of the work of the Financial Stability Institute in Asia and the Pacific; and, an extension of banking services in the Asian time zone, with the aim of bringing them closer in scope to those offered in the European time zone.

Mr Zhou Xiaochuan, ACC Chairman and Governor of the People’s Bank of China, today said that the governors attending the meeting “welcomed these initiatives to deepen cooperation between the BIS and its partners in the Asia and the Pacific”. He also noted that the three-year research program on financial and monetary topics was warmly received by regional governors.

“The endorsed initiatives,” said BIS general manager Malcolm Knight, “will build on services the BIS currently provides in Asia and the Pacific. They will provide an effective means for enhancing understanding of policy issues that are important to central banks and supervisors in the region, contributing significantly to the BIS’s global work on central bank cooperation and financial stability issues.” In recent years, the BIS’s interaction with Asian central banks has increased significantly, especially after the opening of its Representative Office for Asia and the Pacific in Hong Kong SAR in 1998 and the formation of the Asian Consultative Council in 2001.