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China, Japan, Korea bankers to hold regular dialogue

By Xin Zhiming (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-12-10 15:50

China's central bank said in a statement today that central bankers of China, Japan and South Korea will hold regular meetings to discuss regional economic and financial issues. The mechanism is aimed to enhance dialogue among the financial policymakers of those countries, the statement said.

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It also said the exchange will be conducive to monetary and financial stability of the region. The meeting would be held once a year and Beijing will host the first such meeting next year.

With the global financial crisis spreading to the real economies of Asian countries, Asian economies have joined hands to enhance cooperation to ward off the impacts of the crisis.

In May, East Asian finance ministers agreed to set up an $80 billion fund to upgrade the existing currency swap scheme to fight regional financial crises, taking the region a step closer to creating a full-scale Asian monetary fund.

Japan, China and South Korea agreed to provide 80 percent of the total fund, or $64 billion, with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, promising to provide the remaining $16 billion.

The fund will replace the previous arrangement - called the Chiang Mai Initiative - of mainly bilateral currency swaps, which came into being in 2000, and transform it into a reserve-pooling mechanism.