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BANGKOK - Thailand said on Wednesday it would propose that Asian countries expand a short-term liquidity support scheme to at least $150 billion at a meeting in Beijing this week.
In May, East Asian finance ministers agreed to create $80 billion in currency swaps to replace existing arrangements of mainly bilateral swaps called the Chiang Mai Initiative.
Olarn Chaipravat, a Thai deputy prime minister in charge of economics, told Reuters Thailand would propose "an
implementation of the proposed multilateralisation and expansion of the short-term liquidity support scheme, or the
Chiang Mai Initiative, to at least 150 billion U.S. dollar equivalents".
He would also propose "the pooling of sovereign wealth funds to invest in long-term Asian equities and bonds ... to
finance infrastructure projects across Asia up to 200 billion U.S. dollar equivalents".
Southeast Asian leaders meet in Beijing on Oct. 23 and 24 to discuss measures to deal with the global financial crisis.
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