13 Asian nations to set up $80-billion crisis fund

Madrid: Finance ministers of 13 Asian nations agreed on 5 May to set up a foreign exchange pool of at least $80 billion to be used in the event of another regional financial crisis.China, Japan and South Korea will provide 80% of the funds, with the rest coming from the 10 members of ASEAN, they said in a joint statement issued after talks on the sidelines of an Asian Development Bank meeting in Madrid.The 13 nations agreed after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis to set up a mainly bilateral currency swap scheme known as the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) to protect their currencies from turmoil in the future.