Asian Bond Watch: Choosing the right investment vehicle

Kheng-Siang Ng

More than 20 years have passed since the Asian financial crisis and we have seen the region’s local-currency bond market grow from $304 billion in 1998, to over $12 trillion in value today. This rapid ascent can be traced back to programmes such as the Asia Bond Fund (ABF) initiative developed post-1997, as a collaborative effort by the central banks in the Asia Pacific region, to encourage the development of local bond markets. These efforts aimed to curtail reliance on overseas funding capital and to tap into the region’s wealth as a way of insulating it from future economic shocks.