With the International Monetary Fund and other Western financial entities stretched close to the breaking point by the European debt crisis, Asia has decided it is time to act. Policymakers are laying the groundwork to double the region’s reserve pool to $240 billion as a hedge against financial shocks.
Bloomberg reported late Tuesday that officials from Asian countries will meet this week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to confer on the doubling of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization agreement to $240 billion.
Wei Benhua, director of the fund’s surveillance unit in Singapore, said deputy finance ministers from Southeast Asia, China, Japan and South Korea will discuss the plan this week and submit it to their ministers for a May approval.