By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

President Lee Myung-bak said Monday he will propose a summit with the leaders of China and Japan next month to discuss the creation of an $80-billion Asian bailout fund and other measures to jointly cope with the global financial turmoil.

``I will propose the tripartite summit at the Asia-Europe Meeting slated for Beijing in late November,'' Lee said during a luncheon with the chairman of the ruling Grand National Party, Park Hee-tae, at Cheong Wa Dae. ``South Korea, China and Japan have enough dollar reserves to cope with a liquidity crisis. If they join hands, Asia will be able to overcome the global turmoil.''

Last week, Lee proposed a tripartite meeting among the finance ministers of South Korea, Japan and China aimed at coordinating polices to cope with the credit crisis.

During his meeting with Finance and Strategy Minister Kang Man-soo and other top policymakers, he said ``Asia is the world's growth engine, but there is a sign that the U.S. financial crisis could aggravate economies around the world.''

``To strengthen cooperation with regional powers, we should push for holding the tripartite meeting,'' Lee said.

On Sunday, Deputy Strategy and Finance Minister Shin Je-yoon told reporters that he will meet with his Chinese and Japanese counterparts during the upcoming IMF-World Bank annual meeting in Washington from Oct.13 to 15 and ask them to help expedite the setup of an Asian version of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by raising $80 billion out of each country's currency reserves.

``Korea, Japan and China reached a consensus on establishing the $80 billion fund with ASEAN economies in May. But details still need to be worked out,'' Shin said, stressing Korea will try to make the fund operational by next year.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr