Asia seals crisis fund pact

Indonesia - Finance ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and South Korea agreed on Sunday to implement a $120bn currency swap agreement by year's end.

"We are pleased to announce that we have reached agreement on all the main components of the CMIM (Chiang Mai Initiative) and decided to implement the scheme before the end of the year," the ministers said in a joint statement.

The agreement includes each individual country's contributions, borrowing accessibility and the establishment of a surveillance mechanism to oversee the management of the scheme.

The ministers said the initiative met the countries' two "core objectives" - to address short-term liquidity difficulties in the region and supplement existing international financial arrangements.

"We agreed that an independent regional surveillance unit will be established as soon as possible to monitor and analyse regional economies and support CMIM decision-making," the statement said.

"As a start, we agreed to establish an advisory panel of experts to work closely with the ADB (Asian Development Bank) and the ASEAN secretariat to enhance the current surveillance mechanism."

"The total size of the CMIM is $120bn, with the contribution proportion between ASEAN and the plus-three countries at 20:80," the statement said. The plus-three countries are China, Japan and South Korea.

Japan and China agreed to contribute $38.4bn each, with China's share including $4.2bn from Hong Kong. South Korea was the next largest with $19.2bn.

Among the ASEAN countries the biggest contributors were Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, which agreed to provide $4.77bn each.

- AFP