These statements are distributed immediately to the media, sometimes through a news conference called by the Ministers. It has also created another working committee, on tax and public finance. Finance and Central Bank Deputies met in March 2000. Leaders Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation, issued in Manila in November 1999. This is in addition to the plans to set up a system of monitoring capital flows and to strengthen the regional surveillance mechanism in East Asia.
Several reasons explain the growing calls for setting up regional support mechanisms.
First, regional support mechanisms can be useful in complementing national measures, because individual countries lack the resources and capacity to face a financial crisis. Second, there is a need to pay greater attention to the regional level, because of the regional concentration of financial and trade flows. Third, the contagion effects of financial troubles affect countries within the region more severely. Fourth, a regional mechanism could respond more quickly to a financial crisis in a particular country and contain its contagion. They agreed to establish a regional financing arrangement called the Chiang Mai Initiative.