Regional Financial Cooperation:

The ASEAN countries believed that  the well co-ordinated manipulation of currencies by speculators was a deliberate attempt to destabilise the ASEAN economies. At  the 30th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held  in Malaysia  they issued a joint declaration on 25 July 1997 expressing  serious  concern and called for further intensification  of ASEAN's cooperation to safeguard and promote ASEAN's  interest in this regard.

As  a response to  the crisis, Asian countries began to consider establishing regional financial  facilities. This was  a  reflection  of their  views  that  the provisions of international financial assistance through .existing multilateral arrangements had been neither timely nor sufficient to deal with the crisis.

Finally, the finance ministers of ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) countries reached  an agreement on the Chiang Mai  Initiative (CMI), which was the first significant regional financing arrangement  to enable countries to cope with disruptive capital  flows and maintain exchange rate stability in Thailand in May 2000.