The ASEAN region’s economic expansion has created significant financing needs among corporations and investment opportunities for households. This report aims to support ASEAN policy makers harness opportunities and address barriers in mobilising capital markets for sustainable growth and development in the region. It focuses on the functioning of capital markets and the corporate sector’s use of market-based financing. It also examines current corporate governance regulatory frameworks, emerging artificial intelligence trends in finance, and sustainable finance developments with a focus on corporate sustainable bonds.

This book assesses the progress in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in ASEAN, India and China using the above framework conditions in the context with three main propositions. First, translating the SDGs into regional economic integration strategies during the pandemic recovery can enhance the link between global objectives and the multifaceted reality of an ASEAN community building process, and providing a strategic option to strengthen the regional approaches. Secondly, a regional approach on complementarities to SDGs can facilitate the definition of relevant targets/indicators and enhance the monitoring and evaluation framework. In so doing it could also offer the scope to integrate more closely ASEAN community’s social and environmental concerns into existing economic, social and political frameworks. Thirdly, focusing just on the geo-economic sphere – the area where south east and East Asian economic integration is relatively more advanced – will prove the hypothesis that effective regional integration through mega trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) can support the Asia’s transformation agenda and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth.

First, the book documents the evolution of Asia's infrastructure over the past half-century and reviews existing literature on the role of infrastructure investment in supporting growth and social development. It highlights the positive impact of mass transit investments on land and property values, and the possibility of taxing the increase in values to finance these investments. It then examines Asia's current practices and new solutions that can help meet the infrastructure gap. It discusses the role of institutions, how innovation can foster energy infrastructure investments, and the role of bond markets in infrastructure investments. The book explores ASEAN+3 efforts in developing local currency bond markets to provide long-term local financing for infrastructure investment while providing financial resilience. It also examines the use of green bonds to finance sustainable growth in Asia.

The global landscape study on ‘Green finance as a critical lever for delivering sustainable agrifood system’ is an inclusive commentary on the current status of green finance to agrifood sector in the global south and its support system. This document provides evidence that the current green finance trends favour the development of the clean energy industry, whereas smallholder agriculture has not had the same success. Financing the agrifood sector in a “business as usual” mode is not a sufficient condition to mitigate the risks emanated from a range of climatic shocks and unprecedented events impacting the global food value chains. Sustainable financing mechanisms through innovative instruments and business practices are potential solutions and green finance emerges as the way forward to shift the focus from economic profit creation to the generation of stakeholder’s value (economic, environmental, and social governance). The document presents an excellent opportunity that can help elicit ongoing initiatives, application mechanisms, and significant issues to build global narratives about developing an inclusive approach to green finance services for the agrifood sector.

This report presents a summary of the key challenges and opportunities related to financing that contributes to water security and sustainable growth distilling insights from the Roundtable on Financing Water and related analyses. It covers a broad range of water-related investments, including water and sanitation services, water resources management, agricultural water and managing water-related risks (“too much”, “too little” and “too polluted”).

The De Gruyter Handbook of Sustainable Development and Finance explores the difficult and challenging issues confronting society and the environment, in the contexts of unprecedented climate change, bio-diversity loss and the global pandemic. In this seminal text exploring a wide range of topics, and in the devastating wake of COVID-19, scholars and practitioners analyse the effectiveness of current and proposed actions to build a sustainable future, and the public and private finance necessary to prevent an impending planetary catastrophe. The first section of the handbook introduces readers to the origins and evolution of sustainable development. An examination of public and private finance follows in the next two sections, presented from the perspectives of authors from both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries. Climate change, one of the largest sectors of finance for sustainable development, is investigated in detail, as is the new and emerging development frontier, the ‘blue’ economy of the world’s oceans. Suitable for students, policymakers and the public at large, the handbook highlights the lessons learned and points the way forward for sustainable development and finance in the wake of the global pandemic, and the challenges to come.

Latin America and the Caribbean needs an ambitious and comprehensive investment agenda to embark on a stronger and more sustainable development trajectory. The 16th edition of the Latin American Economic Outlook proposes ways to make this possible through co-ordinated actions by policy makers, the private sector and international partners.

The global public health crisis of COVID-19 highlights the importance of digital technology. The digital economy is also booming during the pandemic, which has become one of the major driving forces of economic recovery. Given the vital importance of digital technology and the digital economy, this book provides an in-depth understanding of their implications for the sustainable development of ASEAN-China relations from various perspectives. In addition, authors also contribute their resourceful insights on the sustainable development of both China and ASEAN Member States (AMS) through the lens of eco-tourism, carbon neutrality, social inequality, and others.This book provides a series of high-quality policy recommendations. Specific policy recommendations include: 1) China and ASEAN should launch a project to identify connectivity gaps and detail how this might evolve in future investment in digital and ICT (science, technology and innovation). 2) Efforts should be intensified in digital literacy programs, capacity building, and promotion of digital skills to build workforce capacity in the digital age. 3) As a pacesetter in the digital inclusion agenda in the healthcare sector, China can cooperate with other AMS on digital healthcare projects. 4) Action plans should increase collaborative manufacturing and develop mutual trust in supply chains. 5) China and ASEAN should align STI policies with industrial policies and cooperate in adopting frontier technologies while diversifying their production bases by mastering many existing technologies.6) ASEAN and China should continue facilitating e-commerce, including paperless customs clearance, electronic transaction documents, digital authentication, and electronic and online payments.

This book investigates long-term development issues for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It finds that with the proper policy mix—including domestic structural reforms and bold initiatives for regional integration—ASEAN has the potential to reach by 2030 the average quality of life enjoyed today in advanced economies and to fulfill its aspirations to become a resilient, inclusive, competitive, and harmonious (RICH) region. Key challenges moving forward are to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability, support equitable growth, promote competitiveness and innovation, and protect the environment. Overcoming these challenges to build a truly borderless economic region implies eliminating remaining barriers to the flow of goods, services, and production factors; strengthening competitiveness and the institutional framework; and updating some governing principles. But ASEAN should not merely copy the European Union. It must maintain its flexibility and pragmatism without creating a bloated regional bureaucracy. The study’s main message is that through closer integration, ASEAN can form a partnership for achieving shared prosperity in the region and around the globe.

The global financial system is the worldwide framework of legal agreements, institutions, and both formal and informal economic actors that together facilitate international flows of financial capital for purposes of investment and trade financing. Since emerging in the late 19th century during the first modern wave of economic globalization, its evolution is marked by the establishment of central banks, multilateral treaties, and intergovernmental organizations aimed at improving the transparency, regulation, and effectiveness of international markets. In the late 1800s, world migration and communication technology facilitated unprecedented growth in international trade and investment. At the onset of World War, I, trade contracted as foreign exchange markets became paralyzed by money market illiquidity. Countries sought to defend against external shocks with protectionist policies and trade virtually halted by 1933, worsening the effects of the global Great Depression until a series of reciprocal trade agreements slowly reduced tariffs worldwide. Efforts to revamp the international monetary system after World War II improved exchange rate stability, fostering record growth in global finance.