AMRO was born out of crisis. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–98 exposed the region’s deep vulnerabilities—currencies collapsed, capital fled, and economies contracted sharply. The absence of a regional financial safety net and a mechanism to monitor cross-border risks became evident. In response, the Chiang Mai Initiative was launched, and AMRO was established in 2011 with a mission to safeguard macroeconomic stability by monitoring vulnerabilities, assessing risks, and providing policy advice at the regional level.
Today, regional surveillance for ASEAN+3 has become ever more critical. Since AMRO’s creation, the global economic landscape has changed significantly. Most prominently, China has emerged as a key supply hub and dominant source of final demand, tightening its trade and financial linkages within ASEAN+3. Despite the deeper integration, the region remains highly exposed to global trade and financial cycles – including sharing a common vulnerability to spillovers from US monetary policy – but the nature of this exposure is changing. More recently, rising geoeconomic tensions and trade reconfiguration have further shifted production and investment patterns within the region. A regional view for a more complete appreciation of the scope of this shift is therefore required.
Why regional lens for ASEAN+3 matters
The ASEAN+3 region is immense and heterogeneous. Comprising the ten ASEAN economies plus China; Hong Kong, China; Japan; and Korea, the region accounts for nearly 30 percent of global GDP and is one of the world’s most significant economic groupings. Within it are economies at very different stages of development – from lower-middle-income countries such as Cambodia and Laos to high-income financial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore.
Yet ASEAN+3 economies are highly interlinked and share many common factors. Historically, they were seen as highly open and dependent on external demand from the US and Europe. Over time, however, trade and financial linkages within the region have deepened, supported by integrated supply chains. Today, more than 40 percent of the region’s trade and investment occurs within its borders, and supply shocks increasingly drive synchronized output fluctuations across economies. These dynamics highlight why a dedicated regional lens is essential for effective macroeconomic surveillance.
Consider how we’ve been tracking the potential impact of heightened US tariffs – a global shock with distinct regional implications. Our analysis shows that while individual economies would face direct impacts through reduced exports, the real story lies in the complex transmission channels within the region: supply chain disruptions affecting multiple economies simultaneously, investment reconfigurations that could benefit some while harming others, and the potential for deeper regional integration as a defensive response.
How AMRO develops its surveillance framework
Regional surveillance isn’t simply about aggregating individual economies’ statistics or applying global models to a subset of economies. It requires a strong understanding of the unique interlinkages that define a region: how supply chains connect, how financial markets interact, and how common challenges create shared vulnerabilities and opportunities.
At AMRO, the surveillance framework has been built around four interconnected pillars. Country consultations provide ground-level insights into macroeconomic developments, fiscal, monetary, and financial conditions. Regional surveillance, financial surveillance, and fiscal surveillance provide region-wide, cross-cutting monitoring for both the near and long term. These elements, supported by policy reviews and thematic studies, work together, with bottom-up country insights combining with top-down regional analysis to create a comprehensive picture (Figure 2).
Equally important is engagement with member authorities. Regular surveys, consultations, and structured dialogues ensure our work remains grounded in real-world policy concerns, allowing us to align technical analysis with the priorities of regional policymakers.
This integrated approach comes to life in our flagship reports. The ASEAN+3 Regional Economic Outlook (AREO) provides our assessment of near-term prospects and longer-term structural challenges. The ASEAN+3 Financial Stability Report examines risks to regional financial systems, while the ASEAN+3 Fiscal Policy Report evaluates fiscal positions across the region. These aren’t just analytical exercises—they feed directly into policy dialogues with member authorities and contribute to the region’s economic review and policy dialogue process.
Looking ahead: adapting surveillance to a changing world
While AMRO has over the years developed its own set of surveillance tools to trace shocks through supply chains, assess cross-border vulnerabilities, and run scenario analyses tailored to the region’s characteristics, surveillance work must continually adapt to a fast-changing environment.
Geoeconomic fragmentation, technological shifts, and rising uncertainty mean shocks now interact in increasingly complex ways. This calls for a flexible framework to track different types of shocks, gauge their persistence, and distinguish between temporary disruptions and structural shifts.
Unprecedented uncertainty – both in the near term and the long term – demands scenario-robust responses. Policymakers need to prepare for multiple futures, making forward-looking tools such as strategic foresight central to anticipating risks and shaping policy options that remain effective across a range of outcomes.
Ultimately, regional surveillance should serve as the essential “middle layer” to comprehensive surveillance. Complementing global surveillance and national surveillance – a regional lens captures the spillovers, common factors, and interlinkages that bind ASEAN+3 together. By identifying shared challenges and opportunities and fostering policy coordination, it can help deepen regional integration, strengthen resilience, and reinforce ASEAN+3’s collective capacity to navigate an uncertain world.
Find out more about AMRO’s approach to regional surveillance here.