A joint press conference of the 10th ASEAN+3 Finance Minister's Meeting is held in Kyoto, Japan, on May 5, 2007. The finance ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan and South Korea (ASEAN+3) concluded their 10th meeting on Saturday afternoon in Kyoto, vowing to further deepen financial cooperation. (Xinhua/Liu Haoyuan) Photo Gallery>>>

  ¡¡KYOTO, Japan, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Finance ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan and South Korea (ASEAN+3) concluded their 10th meeting Saturday afternoon in Kyoto, vowing to further deepen cooperation in fields of finance and trade.

    During the meeting, the ministers unanimously agreed in principle that a self-managed reserve pooling arrangement governed by a single contractual agreement is an appropriate form of multilateralization of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), according to the joint statement released after the meeting.

    They recognized the consensus reached as a significant achievement towards an advanced framework of regional liquidity support mechanism.

    The ministers were pleased to see that the Bilateral Swap Arrangement (BSA) network has increased to 80 billion U.S. dollars, consisting of 16 BSAs among 8 countries, and noted the substantial progress made in the activities of the new Taskforce on CMI Multilateralization, according to the statement.

    "We instructed the Deputies to carry out in-depth studies on the key elements of the multilateralization of the CMI including surveillance, reserve eligibility, size of commitment, borrowing quota and activation mechanism," the statement said, adding that the ministers reiterated their commitment to maintain the two core objectives of the CMI, in specific to address short-term liquidity difficulties in the region and to supplement the existing international financial arrangements.

    The 13 ministers also reiterated their commitment to accelerate and deepen structural reforms and implement appropriate macroeconomic policies including domestic demand-driven measures to support sustainable economic growth of the region.

    The meeting was held in the Japanese ancient capital on the sidelines of the 40th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank.

Backgrounder: ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers' Meeting

    KYOTO, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Finance ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan and South Korea (ASEAN+3) concluded their 10th meeting on Saturday afternoon in the Japanese ancient capital of Kyoto. Following are the background of the meeting.

    ASEAN+3:

    Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997 to 1998, the 10 ASEAN member countries have initiated a regular series of meetings at the ministerial and head of government levels with their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea.

    The meetings include annual meetings of the ASEAN+3 minister meetings of foreign affairs, trade and investment, and finance. In addition, heads of government from the 13 countries meet during ASEAN's annual summits, with meetings between the 13 countries' ministers of trade, finance, and foreign affairs, being a part of the summit proceedings.

    ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers' Meeting:

    The ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers' Meeting mechanism was established in 2000. At the meetings, discussions focus on financial sector cooperation, a surveillance and policy dialogue process through which countries discuss economic and financial sector trends and indicators, and on the Chiang Mai Initiate (CMI), a network of bilateral currency swap arrangements (BSAs) among the ASEAN countries, China, Japan and South Korea. As of 2004, financial cooperation discussions have also included the Asian Bond Market Initiative (ABMI).