The ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office – AMRO is an international organization based in Singapore. We monitor economic developments of ASEAN 10 countries plus China, Japan, and Korea (ASEAN+3) from the perspective of preventing currency crises, and support the implementation of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), a regional currency swap mechanism among the member economies. T
he establishment of AMRO was first agreed by ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers at their meeting in February 2009 and incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in Singapore in April 2011. Thereafter, in February 2016, AMRO became an international organization with the AMRO agreement entering into force. The number of employees has increased from just four at the time of its inception to 61 by the end of 2019, and our operations have deepened and expanded. In 2016, AMRO set force its "Strategic Direction", where our mission and vision were identified as appended.
- Mission: To contribute to the macroeconomic and financial stability of the region through conducting macroeconomic surveillance and supporting the implementation of the regional financial arrangement.
- Vision: To be an independent, credible and professional regional organization acting as a trusted policy advisor to members in the ASEAN+3 region. AMRO has three core operations, which are (a) conducting macroeconomic surveillance, (b) supporting the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM), and (c) providing technical assistance. (a) Macroeconomic surveillance
One of AMRO's major tasks is macroeconomic surveillance. With cooperation from member authorities in the region, AMRO send our country surveillance team to ASEAN+3 economies to assess the macroeconomic and financial developments in an economy and provide policy recommendations. The findings are published in the form of Annual Consultation Report in on our website. AMRO also conducts regional surveillance; since 2017, AMRO has annually published ASEAN+3 Regional Economic Outlook, or AREO as our flagship report. Likewise, we have submitted policy note to the ASEAN+3 Leaders’ Summit since 2017. In addition, AMRO also produces other knowledge products including working papers and analytical notes, which are also found on our website. (b) Support the CMIM
AMRO also provides a secretariat function for the CMIM, and supports its implementation. The CMIM provides financing to countries under balance of payment or liquidity pressure to prevent contagion of a financial distress. The CMIM has seen rounds of functional enhancements in the last decade. In 2010, the set of currency swap arrangements among member authorities were reformulated, and bundled into a single multilateral contract - the multilateralization of the Chiang Mai Initiative. In July 2014, the size of the total commitment under the CMIM was doubled to $240 billion, and a new facility named CMIM Precautionary-Line (CMIM-PL) was introduced, with which a CMIM member authority can preventively set a US dollar credit line in advance of an actual crisis. Also in 2014, the percentage of "IMF De-link" portion where a CMIM member authority can request funding from CMIM without IMF financial assistance, was increased to 30 percent. Furthermore, in June this year, CMIM operational readiness was further enhanced. The CMIM is now equipped with more flexible lending mechanism to facilitate co-financing with the IMF, and a rigid legal basis to set conditionality in its lending activities.
AMRO, as the de-facto secretariat of the CMIM, has developed a tool to assess the eligibility for the CMIM-PL, and has used the tool in our surveillance activities. We also support the ASEAN+3 authorities’ discussion on various CMIM-related issues, and conduct annual desk exercises (test runs) in cooperation with the IMF. (c ) Provide technical assistance
AMRO provides technical assistance to its member countries. This activity is supported by generous financial contributions from China, Japan and Korea. In 2019, we welcomed a total of 12 secondees, and together with AMRO staff, they join our regular surveillance activities. AMRO also provides thematic technical assistance projects (e.g., bank stress testing) to cater to the needs of member authorities. (d) Partnership
AMRO is also actively engaged in building partnerships with other international organizations and other peer institutions. To name a few examples:
- AMRO concludes Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with, among others, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR) to exchange information, implement joint projects/events, and to deepen cooperation in areas such as personnel exchanges.
- Together with the ADB, the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the OECD and the Economic Research Institute for East Asia and the ASEAN (ERIA), we organize Asian Regional Roundtable to improve our research capabilities.
- AMRO actively forge synergies with other regional financial arrangements, such as the ESM and FLAR, and hold High-Level Dialogue and research seminar to strengthen the global financial safety net.
