Regional financial cooperation

Mr. Makoto Utsumi contributed to Nikkei today in "Keizai Kyoshitsu (Economic Classroom)"as the first of the series of "10 years after the Asian Crisis - Lessons" in which he emphasized the importance of a regional initiative to cooperate with IMF. Furthermore, he was somewhat sceptical of the idea of establishing Asian Currency Unit in East Asia as he does not see any feasibilites in having Europena snake-type mechanism at the moment. However his idea of having core group such as the original ASEAN members to srat snake, then Japan and Korea participating, China participating after RMB shifts to float is quite in line with the leading scholars in the region in the sense that the cooperative stance should be taken by the policy makers in the region in the area of foreign exchange policy and monetary policy. Anyhow I hope that his remarks could further activate the discussion in this area much further.