Asian nations hope to finalize details of a US$120 billion fund to battle future financial crises by next month and launch it soon after, a draft document obtained yesterday showed.
Regional leaders will also push for the establishment of an independent unit to monitor signs of an impending financial crisis, said the document, which is to be issued at a weekend summit in Thailand.
The 16 Asian leaders will support their finance ministers’ decision in February to expand the crisis fund from the original US$80 billion and stress the importance of making the fund operational “as soon as possible.”
They will encourage their finance ministers “to continue their efforts to reach an agreement” on its main components at their next meeting in the Indonesian island of Bali next month, the document said.
The 10-member ASEAN will contribute 20 percent of the US$120 billion, while their partners China, Japan and South Korea will account for the rest.
At a meeting in Pattaya on Thursday, ASEAN finance ministers agreed that Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand would contribute US$4.76 billion each and the Philippines US$3.68 billion.
The other five members, including ASEAN’s poorest members Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, would contribute amounts based on the size of their foreign exchange reserves, Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said.
China, Japan and South Korea will discuss the size of their contributions among themselves.
The emergency fund, called the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization, is an expansion of the Chiang Mai Initiative — a bilateral currency swap scheme set up after the 1997 to 1998 Asian financial crisis.
Under the new scheme, the swaps will be multilateral, making it easier for countries under stress to borrow emergency funds.
In a related measure, the leaders also said in the document that they will support the “strengthening of the regional surveillance mechanism by establishing an independent regional surveillance unit as soon as possible.”
This unit will “monitor the regional and global economic situation” for signs of an impending crisis that might affect Asia, it said.
Excesses in the US financial heartland of Wall Street have been largely blamed for the current global economic downturn, but Asian banks have held up well thanks to measures imposed after the 1997 to 1998 regional financial meltdown.
However, Asia’s export-reliant economies have been hit by falling global demand, sending some of them into recession.
ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The navy has installed 13 Phalanx Block 1B close-in weapons systems on its warships, increasing their defensive firepower, a defense official said on Saturday. The systems cost the navy NT$10.16 billion (US$314.67 million), while eight additional Block 1A systems are being upgraded in the US and are expected to be delivered next year, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Phalanx system used by Taiwan to defend its warships and key radar installations is a radar-cued gun system capable of firing 4,500 rounds a minute at targets as far away as 1.5km, the official said. With their superior range of
RECOVERY: Overall, average income across all age groups increased, climbing to a record NT$709,000 last year, on the back of an improved economy, the DGBAS said Taiwanese workers under the age of 30 last year, on average, earned an annual income of NT$545,931 (US$17,044), a new high, as the economy continued to improve, data released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. That equated to monthly earnings of NT$45,494 per person, and marked an increase from NT$535,667 in 2022, the data showed. In addition to an improved economy, average incomes rose as the unemployment rate declined and the minimum wage rose, the statistics agency said. Overall, average income in Taiwan also hit a new record of NT$709,000 last year, up from NT$704,000 in 2022, the data
CARROT AND STICK: Palauan president said in 2020 the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country pledged to flood his country with tourists if it switches alliance Beijing weaponized tourism to the Pacific archipelago of Palau over its allegiance to Taiwan and its accusations that China was behind a major cyberattack there, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr told The Associated Press (AP). Palau, along with Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, is one of the three Pacific nations to recognize Taiwan as an independent democracy. Taipei’s allies in the Pacific have dwindled from six countries in 2019. Nauru abandoned its ties in January. Whipps told the AP in an interview late on Thursday that, in 2020, while he was running for his current post, the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country
FINANCIAL RECORD ISSUE: The TPP did not calculate campaign expenditures and such costs were included in the operational expenses, a party official said The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) last year raised NT$84.3 million (US$2.61 million) in donations and spent no money on campaigning, the latest Control Yuan audits on the campaign finances of Taiwanese political parties yesterday revealed. The audit report was published a day after police searched the offices of accounting firms and other companies linked to TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) presidential campaign as part of a probe into alleged corruption and false reporting of campaign finances dating back several years. Last year, the TPP raised NT$46.6 million in individual donations and NT$30.9 million from businesses while spending NT$71 million, including NT$37 million