Asian countries agree to $120 billion emergency fund

Finance ministers of the ASEAN members plus China, Japan and South Korea have agreed to set up a crisis fund worth up to 120 billion dollars to help the region fight off a credit crunch and overcome the global financial crisis.Ten Asian countries plus China, Japan and South Korea agreed Sunday to set up a 120-billion-dollar emergency currency pool to boost liquidity and help the region overcome the global crisis.Finance ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and South Korea announced the deal after talks alongside the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Indonesia."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.Japan and China will contribute 38.4 billion dollars each, with China's share including 4.2 billion dollars from Hong Kong. South Korea was the next largest with 19.2 billion dollars.Among the ASEAN countries the biggest contributors were Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, which agreed to provide 4.77 billion dollars each.The ministers were careful to explain the scheme was intended to "supplement" existing international financial institutions amid concerns from some quarters that it is a bid to circumvent the International Monetary Fund (IMF).ASEAN member states were forced to implement unpopular economic reforms in exchange for massive IMF bailouts after the 1997-1998 Asian crash, leading to calls for the creation of a regional crisis fund.But the finance ministers played down any suggestion they were snubbing the IMF and its sister lender, the World Bank, saying the move was only a "natural" step on the path of closer regional economic cooperation.