June 20, 2003	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1424

BANGKOK, June 19: Ministers from 18 Asian nations will meet in northern Thailand from Friday for talks expected to focus on the $1 billion Asian Bond Fund, an initiative of Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

The three-day Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), in its second year, will be held in the northern city of Chiang Mai and hosted by Thaksin, the forum’s founder.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-Kwan are confirmed as attending, along with mainly foreign ministers from India, Pakistan, Japan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Qatar and 10 Southeast Asian nations.

“The Asian Bond Fund is one of the very important issues to be taken up there,” deputy foreign ministry spokesman Itti Ditbanjong told AFP, adding that the Chiang Mai Declaration on development of the fund will be issued on Sunday.

On June 2, Thaksin announced the highly-anticipated scheme under which 11 Asian economies — Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand — will focus on investing in regional government bonds.

Thaksin has said he wants the fund to promote regional financial stability and minimize the risk of a repeat of the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis.

On Thursday he said the response had been so positive that a second Asian fund could be set up at the ACD to include India and several Middle Eastern countries who have expressed interest in joining the scheme.

“It may be we can set up another fund at this meeting if many countries agreed on how to develop Asian debt instruments,” he told reporters.

International credit agency Standard and Poor’s last week said the Asian Bond Fund would increase cooperation among the region’s monetary authorities and develop Asia’s capital markets.

Central banks in Japan, the Philippines and Singapore have announced separately that they will each provide $100 million to the fund, while Australia’s reserve bank will contribute $50 million.—AFP