LAHORE, May 14: The State Bank of Pakistan will host the 34th annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) starting here on Monday. The meeting will be presided over by SBP Governor Dr Ishrat Husain who is also the chairman of the ACU.
The meeting will be attended by central bank governors/ deputy governors of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The governor of the central bank of Afghanistan and the deputy managing director of Maldives Monetary Authority (central bank) will also attend the meeting as observers.
Established in 1974, the ACU at present has eight members. The objectives of the ACU are: multilateral settlement of current international transactions; conservation of foreign exchange reserves; promotion of monetary cooperation and closer relations among the members’ banking systems; and provision of currency swap arrangement.
The meeting will consider the ACU annual report 2004, which highlights the member countries’ economic performance, the volume of intra-ACU trade, and efforts towards enlargement of the ACU membership as well as expanding the role of the ACU.
The representative officials of the central banks of the ACU member nations will make brief presentations on the recent monetary and economic developments in their respective countries, exchange views on the current issues in the international monetary scene, and discuss the future role of the ACU.
It may be recalled that the last meeting of the ACU was held in Shiraz, Iran last year. The annual ACU meetings are hosted by the member countries on rotation. The State Bank of Pakistan had earlier hosted the 27th annual meeting held in May 1998 in Karachi.
