Helping themselves
Pacts in Asia are mainly for show
FINANCE officials around East Asia can boast at last that they are putting some flesh on the skeletal framework of regional financial co-operation. At this week's annual meetings of the Asian Development Bank in Honolulu, Japan announced three separate currency “swap arrangements”, with South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. These are to form part of a web of such agreements, intended to strengthen the region's defences against another onslaught on its currencies like that of 1997-98. At best, they are makeshift barricades; at worst, they may do more harm than good.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Helping themselves”
From the May 12th 2001 edition
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