Sovereign Wealth Funds in East Asia

World Bank

Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ACCOUNTING STANDARD;    ACCOUNTING STANDARDS;    ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT;    ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS;   

RP-ID  :  70577

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The massive size, rapid growth, andhigh-profile investments of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) inthe U.S. and elsewhere in 2007 has attracted the attentionof the media, politicians, regulators, and academics overthe past year. Some of the SWF investments have been viewedas market stabilizing, for instance the substantial equityinvestments in large U.S. financial institutions that wererecently in financial trouble after the sub-prime mortgagecrisis. However, there is great suspicion from manypolitical and academic quarters that SWFs are politicallymotivated with many SWFs in Asia now at the center of thestorm. Although SWFs have been in existence for many decadesworldwide, most SWFs in the East Asia and Pacific Region(EAP) are relatively new. The emergence of the SWFs in Asiais largely a by-product of the strong economic developmentat East Asian countries and the attendant accumulation offoreign exchange reserves, however, there are other types ofSWFs in the region. The Governments have taken a concertedstrategy to enhance the returns on these excess reserves.The EAP region is an ideal region to take a look at theissues surrounding SWFs since Asia has the full range offunds from long-established funds to brand new funds; frompassive portfolio investors to more aggressive strategicinvestors; from resource-backed funds to foreignreserve-backed funds; and, based in the largest, most highlydeveloped economies to the smallest, poorest economies inAsia. Therefore, the objective of this report is to documentthe status of Sovereign Wealth Funds in the East Asia Regionand to understand the implications of their rapid growth.Many developing countries have recently shifted a higherproportion of their foreign currency earnings from officialforeign currency reserves to sovereign wealth funds.Sovereign wealth funds have an estimated $600 billion inassets under management in developing countries, dominatedby China ($200 billion held by the Chinese InvestmentCorporation and $68 billion held by the Central HuijinInvestment Company) and Russia ($130 billion held in theReserve Fund and $33 billion held by the Fund of FutureGenerations). It should be noted that this amount is smallrelative to the total level of reserves held by developingcountries (estimated at $3.7 trillion at end 2007).