Within the framework of the working mission of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to attend the 92nd Annual General Meeting of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, on June 24 and June 25, 2022, SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong had a meeting with Mr. Agustin Carstens, BIS General Manager, and another meeting with Mr. Tao Zhang, new BIS Chief Representative for Asia and the Pacific.
Governor Nguyen Thi Hong meets BIS General Manager
At the meeting with Mr. Agustin Carstens on June 24, 2022, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong expressed her sincere thanks to the BIS’s Board of Directors and Board of Management, as well as Mr. Agustin Carstens personally, for having supported the SBV to become a BIS member. The SBV Governor confirmed that the SBV would put the best efforts in implementing fully its membership obligations.
Making high evaluation for the BIS’s role in creating a cooperation forum among the central banks, the SBV Governor asserted that the discussion topics such as the decentralized financing, the climate-related risks, the inflation expectations survey in the household sector, the challenges for the central banks’ communication, the trends in forex reserve management, etc., are highly up-to-date and following closely the socio-economic and the global financial situations, the technology development trends in the financial sector. Those topics are highly relevant and can greatly facilitate the policy-making and the management of the SBV.
In addition, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong also expressed her high appreciation for the banking products and services provided by the BIS, which have supported significantly the SBV’s forex reserve management to achieve the set targets. Especially, the SBV Governor thanked the BIS for its timely formulation of the LIBOR Transition, and the development of new products with risk-free rates such as mid-term bonds (MTI) in GBP, JPY, EUR, AUD, which are priced using the new reference rates. These tools could bring more benefits to customers thanks to their higher yields, but less interest rate fluctuations as compared with the government bonds. The SBV Governor also recommended that the BIS continue to develop other market-based products and provide consultancy on the orientations and the necessary changes in the management of the central banks’ foreign currency reserves in order to support this transition process.
Governor Nguyen Thi Hong presents a souvenir with the SBV logo to BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens.
Following the meeting with the BIS General Manager, on June 25, 2022, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong had another meeting with Mr. Tao Zhang, new BIS Chief Representative for Asia and the Pacific. The SBV Governor congratulated Mr. Tao Zhang on his appointment as BIS Chief Representative for Asia and the Pacific. She expressed her beliefs that the SBV and the BIS, through the Asia and the Pacific Office, would continue to enhance the cooperative relations and the close coordination in the fields that the two sides are interested in.
Governor Nguyen Thi Hong spoke highly of the research activities of the BIS Asia and the Pacific Office. The research topics, such as green finance, sustainable finance, frameworks for financial stability, monetary policies, exchange rates, and developments of capital flows in the emerging markets, financial technology, digital economy, policy responses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), etc., have been highly relevant to the SBV’s management, meeting the requirements for research and policy consultancy of the SBV.
The SBV Governor also proposed that in the coming time, the Office could focus on researching, analyzing and assessing the impacts of the global economic instabilities, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the fuel price shock, the policy tightening in tge developed economies, the policy management of central banks in the emerging and developing economies; the development trends of crypto assets/currencies, and the blockchain technology, etc., thereby supporting the BIS's members in the region to formulate and improve the legal frameworks and the management in this area.
Governor Nguyen Thi Hong also expressed her thanks to Mr. Siddarth Tiwari, former BIS Chief Representative of the Asia and the Pacific Office, for his active support for the SBV's accession to the BIS, and for the effective cooperation with the SBV within the framework of the Asian Advisory Council (ACC), the Asian Research Network (ARN), etc.
Toward the end of the meeting, the SBV Governor expressed her gratitude to the Office for having selected the SBV staff to participate in the 3-month secondment program, which is an opportunity for the SBV staff to learn and exchange knowledge and experience with the BIS experts, thereby improving those staff’s research and consultancy capacity. She hoped that in the coming time, the Office would continue to select more officers from the SBV to participate in this secondment program.
Le Hang