Finance ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan and South Korea agreed Sunday on the minimum scale of a regional foreign reserve swap.

"We also agreed that the total size of the multilateralized CMI would be at least US$80 billion," finance chiefs from the 10-member ASEAN and three East Asian countries said in a joint statement after concluding a meeting under the framework called ASEAN+3 on Sunday.

Of the total amount, Japan, China and South Korea would contribute 80 percent, while ASEAN countries pay the remaining, according to the statement.

"I am glad to inform that the 11th ASEAN+3 finance ministers' meeting has come to a successful conclusion," Vietnam's Finance Minister Vu Van Ninh, who co-chaired the meeting with his Japanese counterpart, said at a press conference.

CMI, or Qing Mai Initiative, is a regional financing arrangement agreed by the 13 countries in 2000 to swap foreign exchange reserves, mainly on bilateral basis, in order for use when necessary to fight against speculative attacks on their currencies.

It was aimed at preventing a recurrence of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.

The multilateralized CMI is the next step, as has been mapped out at the last ASEAN+3 meeting of finance ministers in Japan's Kyoto last year, which would be moving from the previous bilateral system to a multilateral one. It would be a self-managed reserved pooling arrangement governed by a single contract.

After more than one year in the making, Ninh said the 13 finance ministers also agreed on key concepts of the borrowing accessibility, the activation mechanism and other elements.

"Based on the progress made thus far on some of the key elements of the multilateralism of the CMI, we are committed to further accelerate our work in order to reach consensus on all of the elements," the finance ministers said.

Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said he expected the swap to be operational as early as 2009.

"Next year when ASEAN+3 finance ministers' meeting will be held, I am sure that good framework will be made and maybe it would become possible to be implemented," Nukaga said, adding great efforts are still needed.

As another part of the efforts to strengthen regional financial cooperation, ASEAN+3 finance ministers said it would be indispensable to build a credible system to monitor the economic and financial situation of the member countries.

As a start, they agreed to implement measures to strengthen the current economic review and policy dialogue, such as increasing the frequency of the dialogues and developing a standardized format for the provision of necessary information data,.

"Such strengthened regional surveillance system will contribute to smooth and efficient decision making," the finance ministers said.

Ministers also gave an impetus to the development of the Asian bond markets, endorsing a new roadmap, which focused on four key areas, namely promoting issuance of local currency-denominated bonds, improving regulatory framework and improving related infrastructure for the bond markets.

This year, the ASEAN+3 finance ministers met at a crucial time when the world economy is facing serious downturn risks amid ongoing financial turmoil and surging oil and food prices.

"There are outstanding risks to the global economy including the financial market turmoil and inflationary pressures from food and energy. To overcome these risks, mutual support in this region is extremely important," Ninh said.

The finance ministers said while they remained positive about the long-term resilience of the global economy, the short-term economic prospects have weakened.

"Risks to the outlook come from the still unfolding events in financial markets, the potential worsening of housing and credit cycles and inflationary pressures driven by high energy and food prices," they said in the joint statement.

As to the regional economy, they said it has continued its strong growth and was forecasted to remain robust although somewhat weaker.

The ASEAN+3 finance ministers' meeting was held on the sidelines of an annual gathering of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which began on Saturday.

The four-day gathering of the Manila-based bank was largely devoted to surging food prices and the ADB's new long-term strategy to tackle poverty.

(Xinhua News Agency May 5, 2008)