During the workshop, themed "Moving the ABMI Agenda Forward: Securitisation and Cross-Border Bond Issuance", the SC played a key role by sharing its experience on the development of the country's bond market, in line with Malaysia's commitment to provide technical assistance to the ABMI's Technical Assistance Coordination Team (TACT). The ABMI is part of the ASEAN+3 initiative to mobilise Asian savings for Asian investments. The ASEAN+3 countries include all ASEAN nations as well as Japan, Korea and China.

The SC Deputy Chief Executive, Dato' Zarinah Anwar said such sharing of information was timely given the region's impressive bond market growth rate that is higher than any other region in the world. As at end-2004, the region's bond market, including Japan, has matured at an annual average rate of 12.4 % since 1997, reaching the size of USD10.3 trillion.

"This pace of growth in our (the region's bond markets) must be maintained in order to sustain robust economic growth and to strengthen the resilience of the financial system," said Dato' Zarinah.

She also highlighted the need for countries in the region to continuously seek new avenues and opportunities to promote the development of the region's bond markets.

"Cross-border transactions will provide new opportunities for regional bond markets and lay the foundation for an Asian bond market by the utilisation of Asian savings for Asian investments," she said.

Among others, participants were given an insight into the role of the government and the regulatory bodies in driving and coordinating necessary reforms to facilitate growth and development of the domestic asset-backed securities market in Malaysia.

These efforts include, among others, a transparent and facilitative regulatory framework as well as tax initiatives granted by the government-among the key factors that have contributed to the growth of the Malaysian securitisation market since 2001.

Additionally, the workshop provided the perspective of Malaysian issuers, as well as an account on efforts in structuring Cagamas securitisation issues.

Over 40 senior government officials from nine member countries in the ASEAN+3 region attended the workshop. In addition to speakers from Malaysia, the workshop featured speakers from the public and private sectors of Korea and Japan as well as international academicians. Other participants include representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which supports the ABMI in various studies and research projects on the development of bond markets in the region.