Asia's evolving cash management

The Asian economic landscape has changed a great deal during the past 10 years and this exciting region continues to develop rapidly. Asia's importance to the global economy continues to increase and the past decade has seen the region become a much more significant economic player. While trade with the rest of the world has continued to show impressive growth, intra-Asian trade -- fuelled, in part, by a middle-class that it growing in numbers and affluence -- has also developed in its importance to the region, affording it a greater level of protection against economic shocks originating in the EU and the US.

However, while these developments are certainly to be welcomed, they have contributed to a changing landscape for treasurers working in the region, making efficient cash management more complex by increasing the exposures to local currencies faced by many corporates. Indeed, the move away from the bulk of trade being conducted on a US dollar-basis has demanded that treasurers expand their risk management arrangements to take account of this changing landscape.