Local market development critical to financial stability, EBRD's Berglof says in Astana

ASTANA. May 20. KAZINFORM The development of effective local capital markets is crucial to long-term financial stability, the EBRD's Chief Economist Erik Berglof said on Thursday.

Under-developed local currency and capital markets and lack of domestic funding proved to be a major vulnerability in the global economic crisis and urgent steps were needed to redress the key economic imbalance, he added.

Mr Berglof was speaking after a conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the development of Local Currency Finance and Local Currency Markets, organised by the EBRD, the G-20 French Presidency and the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee, the press service of the EBRD reports.

The conference, held on the sidelines of the EBRD Annual Meeting, brought together experts and senior policy-makers to discuss responses to the challenge of excessive foreign currency borrowing that were very costly to economies during the global financial crisis.

It looked at the concrete root causes and consequences of excessive foreign exchange borrowing, examined case studies on how countries such as Turkey, Russia and Poland had managed to reduce dependence on foreign currency, as well as the practical implications of the development of local currency markets and how cross-border credits can be made less risky.