Japan increases financial support for Southeast Asia

Japan has expanded currency swap agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines while maintaining the arrangement with Singapore so as to help stabilize financial markets in Asia.

Monday, December 16, 2013 10:47

Japan has expanded currency swap agreements with Indonesia and thePhilippines while maintaining the arrangement with Singapore so as tohelp stabilize financial markets in Asia.

Japan agreed to nearlydouble its bilateral swap arrangement with Indonesia to 22.76 billionUSD from 12 billion USD and boost its arrangement with thePhilippines to 12 billion USD from 6 billion USD. It will alsomaintain a three billion swap deal with Singapore.

Theexpansion of the currency deals with the countries, which are majoreconomies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), wouldhelp strengthen their emergency response abilities in the case offinancial crisis, news agencies quoted Japanese Finance Ministry assaying last week.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on December14 pledged Japan's continued support for development of five SoutheastAsian countries along the Mekong River, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,Thailand and Vietnam.

PM Abe said at the fifth Mekong-Japan Summitin Tokyo that development in the Mekong region and narrowing thegaps between the 10 ASEAN member economies are the most important issuestoward the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.

Japan has pledged to extend a total of 600 billion yen in officialdevelopment assistance to the five countries in a three-year periodthrough fiscal 2015.-VNA

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