The participants of the 1st International Public AMC Forum hosted by Korea Asset

 Management Corp.(KAMCO) in Seoul on May 28 including 

Vice Gov. Hansan Rohani of the Asian Development Bank and Chairman Chang Young-chul of the 

Korea asset Management Corp., 3rd R, hold the copy of the declaration adopted at the forum.

Korea Asset Management Corp. (KAMCO) hosted an international a sset management forum at the Hyatt Hotel in Seoul on May 28 with a slew of financial experts from around the world.

Around 530 participants at the international financial acknowledged that Asia could be a tinder box to ignite a global financial crisis with such a great amount of funds flowing into the region as a number of major countries increase their cash in circulation by selling bonds, thus creating financial bubbles in the region. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Vice Gov. Hansan Rohani of the Asian Development Bank were among the participants at the forum.

Chairman and CEO Chang Young-chul of KAMCO said the international asset management forum would go a long way to strengthening the joint management of a financial crisis in Asia.

Professor P. Mosilian of New South Wales University in Australia said at the meeting that a single country in Asia could set off a financial crisis all over the region and beyond if it fails to control its own crisis caused by the financial bubbles created by the inflow of too much foreign funds.

He reminded the gathering that Cyprus spread its financial crisis all over the EU, although it is only a small island off the coast of Greece. Economist Elisha Garcia of BBVA in Spain warned that advanced countries are very cautious in making investments in Asia due to rising signs of risk in the economies of Asian countries.

In fact, the debts of Asian countries have been climbing with the excess funds in advanced nations, including the U.S., flowing into the Southeast Asian region, thanks to policies such as quantitative easing.

 Chairman Chang Young-chul, right, talks with former German 

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at the forum.(Photo courtesy of KAMCO)

Mackenzie, the well known financial consulting firm, in its report said the debt ratios of Asia’s newly emerging countries, other than Korea, rose to 155 percent in the second quarter of last year from 133 percent in 2008, the year of the global financial crisis.

Many also expressed concern with China’s economy. Macro-Economy Policy Research Department Manager Kang Dong-soo of the Korea Development Institute said the default may break out in the regions of China where government regulators cannot reach, and smaller neighbors would have great trouble containing a crisis in China if develops.

In this context, KAMCO announced the establishment of the International Public Asset Management Forum, which would be the first non-government international organization run by a state-owned enterprise. The new financial forum is designed to strengthen the capacity to handle crises in the process of taking care of defaulted assets jointly with member firms.

KAMCO was established by the Act of Effective Resolution of Financial Institution NPLs and Establishment of KAMCO in 1962. Since its establishment, KAMCO has purchased and resolved financial institutions’ NPLs, restructured corporations, assisted in the restoration of credit-worthiness of the financially-underprivileged, managed state-owned properties, and collected overdue taxes as a quasi governmental entity. As the perpetual restructuring institution, KAMCO serves the development of the nation’s economy and financial institutions, maximizes government revenue by effectively managing government commissioned state-owned properties, and at the time of crisis, KAMCO stood on the front lines to support households, corporations, financial institutions, and even the government as the nation’s economic safeguard.

KAMCO has always played a crucial role in managing market liabilities and the effectiveness of the company’s EPL dispositions in restructuring Korea’s financial debt market during the Asian financial crisis of 1998 has become a case study for precarious situations worldwide. More Recently, KAMCO’s system and methodology for handling the Asian financial crisis was presented as an international model at the 2009 G20 Summit.