Japan and South Korea agreed to push ahead with plans for a foreign exchange pool to be used in the event of a regional financial crisis, reports said Sunday.
Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa and his South Korean counterpart Kang Man-Soo agreed to help launch a multilateral currency swap scheme for Asia, when they held talks in Washington on the sidelines of the Group of Seven finance chiefs' meeting, Jiji Press and Kyodo News reported.
The ministers agreed to speed up the implementation of an agreement in May by finance ministers of 13 Asian nations to set up a foreign exchange pool of at least 80 billion dollars (52 billion euros) to be used in the event of another regional financial crisis, the reports said. The reports came as the South Korean won plunged to a 10-year low against the dollar last week and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak accused some businesses and investors of trying to capitalise on financial turmoil.
"As South Korea is Japan's closest neighbour, we want to keep close contacts with them," Nakagawa was quoted as saying by Jiji Press after the meeting. The creation of the pool is a big step towards the creation of an Asian equivalent of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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