An expansion of a currency swap agreement among Asian countries will be discussed by finance ministers meeting this weekend but a deal may not be signed until May, a senior Thai official said on Saturday.
The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) plus Japan, China and South Korea pledged last year to pool bilateral currency swap arrangements under the so-called Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) in an $80 billion multilateral fund that could be tapped in emergencies.
The finance ministers meeting on the resort island of Phuket on Sunday will consider increasing the size of that arrangement, probably to $120 billion. Suparut Kawatkul, permanent secretary at the Thai finance minister, told reporters the ministers would look at details about expanding the CMI that were thrashed out by senior officials at a recent meeting in Japan. "I hope we should be able to make some progress ... This will be formalised at an Asean+3 finance ministers' meeting in Bali in May," he said. "The figure has yet to be finalised but the meeting in Japan suggested $120 billion."