East Asian countries will have their own monetary fund in around five years to promote exchange rate stability and to help ward off a future regional currency crisis, Thailand's finance minister said on Sunday.
East Asian nations agreed in May to set up a self-managed system to pool their reserves and Chalongphob Sussangkarn told Reuters once this multilateral system was established a coordinating organisation would be necessary.
"Personally, I want East Asia to move relatively quickly but in reality it would take maybe five years," Chalongphob said in an interview on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Asian financial crisis.
Chalongphob said the 1997 crisis, which started when massive capital flight toppled an overvalued Thai baht on July 2, was unlikely to be repeated but a new crisis was possible from global financial imbalances and volatile capital flows.
"As of today, the challenges still come from the same source that led to the 1997 crisis and this is the challenge arising from highly volatile and risky capital flows," he said in Manila, where the Asian Development bank is holding a forum on the crisis.
"At the moment many countries have the problem of a too rapid inflow." Thailand imposed capital controls in December to stem a surging baht that threatened the country's export-dominated economy but triggered the biggest one-day sell-off on the Bangkok stock exchange.
Chalongphob said there were no plans to alter or dismantle the measures, which require 30 percent of foreign inflows to be held at the central bank for a year, because they were keeping the currency stable.
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