11 Asian nations will monitor hot money

The government has agreed to build a joint supervisory system with Southeast Asian countries, which also have experienced foreign exchange crises, such as Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia, to monitor the movement of hot money.

Also, Korea, China, Japan and ASEAN member countries will conclude a multilateral swap agreement in November at the earliest, so that participating countries will be able to provide emergency funds if any of them experience a liquidity problem.

Representatives of 11 countries, including Korea, Japan, China and ASEAN members, who are participating in the IMF-World Bank joint annual meetings, held a meeting of finance ministers and agreed on such a regional financial safety system.

Representatives of each country agreed that the financial market of the Southeast Asian region still is vulnerable, although three years have passed since the outbreak of the foreign exchange crisis.

"If a cooperative system is established among countries in the region, it would be helpful to prevent hazards by international speculative funds,¡± Kim Yong-Duk, international financing bureau head of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, said. :¡°We'll also ask the United States and the European Union to continuously regulate their hot money."

Korea, Japan, China and ASEAN countries agreed in May during the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in Thailand to introduce a system of mutual currency exchange and joint monitoring of hot money.

The IMF president said in his keynote speech that the current high oil prices would be disadvantageous both to oil producers and oil-consuming countries, adding that the problem of high oil prices should be solved through dialogue between producers and consumers.

Park Won-Jae parkwj@donga.com