Asian Bond Watch: Choosing the right investment vehicle

Kheng-Siang Ng More than 20 years have passed since the Asian financial crisis and we have seen the region’s local-currency bond market grow from $304 billion in 1998, to over $12 trillion in value today. This rapid ascent can be traced back to programmes such as the Asia Bond Fund (ABF) initiative developed post-1997, as a collaborative effort by the central banks in the Asia Pacific region, to encourage the development of local bond markets. These efforts aimed to curtail …