The development of bond markets in the Asia-Pacific region has been the focus of recent efforts among governments and regional organizations. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum began substantial work on local currency bond markets in the wake of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. In 2003, both APEC and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus Three grouping (APT) initiated work on the development of a regional bond market. Various initiatives, including the Asian Bond Market Initiative (ABMI) and the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) are currently being undertaken, but governments recognize the crucial role of the private sector, particularly investors and issuers, for these efforts to succeed.

During their meeting with the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) in September 2003 in Phuket, the APEC Finance Ministers called for greater private sector inputs to assist the public sector's efforts to develop local currency and regional bond markets. In response to this call, ABAC and the PECC Finance Forum, in partnership with the Asian Bankers' Association (ABA) and the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia (ACRAA), convened a private sector-led conference in May 2004 in Taipei on the development of Asia-Pacific bond markets.

In this conference, private sector participants expressed their willingness to collaborate with the public sector to promote the development of the region's local currency bond markets and the emergence of a commercially viable regional bond market. They identified conditions that are necessary to promote private sector investment and issuance in these markets, and recommended measures to promote these conditions. The key recommendations of the ABAC/PECC 2004 Taipei bond market conference are outlined in Appendix B.

These recommendations were endorsed by ABAC and PECC to the APEC Finance Ministers at their meeting in September 2004 in Santiago, Chile. ABAC also invited APEC member economies to conduct self assessments of the current policy environment for private sector participation in the development of their respective local currency bond markets as well as in promoting the emergence of a regional bond market, based on the areas of improvement identified in the Taipei conference.