> [not sure if this has already done the rounds. maybe i missed it. what
> does it all mean, apart from an extension of bailouts? - Angela]
>
> The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC)
> by Gerard Greenfield
>
> Created on October 1st, 1999, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation
> (JBIC) is now the largest publicly-funded lending agency in the world - and
> is bigger than the World Bank.
Looks like an embryonic AIB to me (Asian Investment Bank, the virtual mirror of the European Investment Bank). Only trouble is, bailouts doth not a development strategy make -- Japan has enough capital to finance its semiperipheries, but there isn't yet an EU-style political construction which could mediate the potential conflicts here (i.e. fund domestic development, as opposed to overseas Japanese firms). Hong Kong or Singapore might actually lead the way here, i.e. provide a neutral forum where China, Japan, the Koreas and the other Asian counties can hash out a post-American survival strategy.
It is significant, though, that the JBIC's $30 billion -- er, 29 billion EUR bailout of SE Asia nicely matches the EIB's 30 billion EUR gig in 1999. The new metropoles are learning from one another.
-- Dennis