PETALING JAYA: The Asean Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) has achieved its commitment in 2022 to promote sustainable development, inclusivity, and resiliency, despite the impact of the global economic downturn and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ACMF convened its 37th ACMF Chairs’ Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, hosted by the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia (SERC).
Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) is a member of the ACMF, which is a high-level grouping of capital market regulators from all 10 Asean jurisdictions.
In a statement, SC said the meeting endorsed the Asean Sustainability-Linked Bond Standards and the Asean Sustainable and Responsible Fund Standards, which will support Asean in narrowing the gap toward the 2030 Agenda in combating climate change.
In addition, the endorsement of these two standards indicated the group’s commitment to meet the ACMF Action Plan 2021-2025 strategic objectives.
The meeting also took note of the progress in the development of the Asean Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance by the Asean Taxonomy Board (ATB), of which the ACMF is one of its four component sectoral bodies.
Following stakeholder consultations on Version 1, which involved the public and private sectors as well as international standards setters, inputs received will be used by the ATB in developing the next version of the Asean Taxonomy.
ACMF has made remarkable progress in promoting sustainable finance.
As of Oct 21, issuances amounting to US$29.82bil have been issued under the Asean Green, Social and Sustainability Bond Standards, which were introduced in 2017 and 2018.
The launch of the Asean Sustainability-Linked Bond Standards and the Asean Sustainable and Responsible Fund Standards will widen the range of sustainable investments in Asean, thereby accelerating sustainable development across the region.
To promote sustainability disclosure across Asean and to enhance the voice of Asean in international standard-setting, the ACMF engaged with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to discuss and convey the Asean perspective on the draft ISSB standards, focusing on the areas of interoperability, proportionality in implementation and phasing in of industry-specific metrics.
