Atiur takes over as chairman of Asian Clearing Union

Posted by BankInfo on Mon, Jun 15 2015 11:01 am

 

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Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman yesterday took over as the chairman of the Asian Clearing Union for one year.

He replaced Valiollah Seif, the governor of the central bank of Iran, who handed over the charge to Rahman at the 44th ACU board meeting at Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka.

ACU helps member countries settle intraregional trade payments in a manner that minimises the involvement of hard currencies.

In 2014, the volume of transactions channelled through ACU was $20.5 billion, which was only $51.44 million in 1976, one year after its inception.

Last year, the total transactions, which include receipts, payments and accrued interests channelled through the ACU mechanism, went up by $3.53 billion over the previous year, said ACU Secretary General Lida Borhan Azad.

Governors and deputy governors of the central banks of Iran, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh attended the meeting.

Rahman, while presiding over the meeting, said, besides its core function of intraregional trade payment settlements, ACU is a useful platform for networking and experience sharing on issues such as macroeconomic, financial and trade policies.

 

He said economic growth of the region is consistently outpacing the overall global growth by a good margin in recent years. The ACU intraregional trade is also growing much faster than global trade growth.

“These signify this region's heightening stature as a global growth hub. Inclusive approaches in development policies are helping the region's growth vibrancy to accelerate social progress in terms of human development and poverty decline,” Rahman said.

The board also discussed issues such as re-opening of the use of domestic currency in ACU mechanism, implementation of web-based application for messaging, and setting up taskforce for dispute resolution, BB said in a statement.

A special discussion also took place on non-performing loan management of the member countries. The board approved the annual report for 2014.

The central bank of Myanmar will host the 45th board meeting in May next year. 

 

News:The Daily Star/15-Jun-2015

 

 

 

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