On March 24th the members of ASEAN plus three other major Asian economies (China, Japan and Korea) began operations of a fund from which member countries can swap their national currencies for US dollars within a pre-determined limit. This so-called “Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization” or CMIM will essentially become an Asian Monetary Fund, once its institutional structure is in place. This paper draws lessons from the Asian experience for the recent debate in Europe over the feasibility and desirability of creating a European stability fund.
Yonghyup Oh is a Visiting Research Fellow at CEPS.