BEIJING - PHILIPPINE President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she wants a December summit of Asian powers to ease conditions on a regional financial support arrangement and bring forward its launch to counter global economic woes.

Mrs Arroyo said on Sunday that while 13 East and Southeast Asian nations agreed on Friday to an US$80 billion (S$120 billion) pool of central bank swap lines, she also wants leaders to ease conditions on use of the pool, 80 per cent of which is tied to steering conditions of the International Monetary Fund.

'The initiative as it now stands is too cumbersome... We're proposing a quicker dispersing,' she told Reuters in an interview after attending the Asia-Europe summit in Beijing.

'It should be multi-lateralised, it should be quick-dispersing, and it should be implemented sooner, rather than later,' she said of the multilateral swap scheme that the Asian nations agreed on Friday to form by mid-2009.

The financial support arrangement as it stands 'may be too difficult for an economy that is in trouble to access on time'.

She also urged that its launch be brought forward to December, when Asean member states will hold a summit with China, Japan and South Korea.

Asean groups Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Brunei.

Together with China, Japan, and South Korea, they are called the 'Asean+3' grouping.

Mrs Arroyo's proposal could easily be scotched by other members of Asean+3 that are wary of putting their funds at greater risk. But she appeared eager to court China as a potential backer.

'China has a tradition of or a track record for being a very responsible member of the global economic order,' she said. 'While it is premature to say what China should do...we are confident China will continue to be a responsible member of the neighbourhood.'

Over the weekend, Beijing hosted 27 EU member states and 16 Asian states for discussions that dwelt on the financial crisis and allowed for sideline talks among the Asian powers.

Asean+3 agreed in May to expand the reserve pooling scheme, taking them a step closer to creating a full-scale Asian monetary fund, which has gained support in Asia as the financial turmoil dampens growth.

Then, ahead of the Asia-Europe summit on Friday, they agreed to speed up cooperation to form the widened scheme by the first half of next year. The agreement would give participating nations access to foreign exchange reserves pool of at least $80 billion in the event of a financial emergency.

That scheme will replace the existing arrangement of mainly bilateral currency swaps formed after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, known as the Chiang Mai Initiative.

'It will be transformed. In fact, I like to call it Chiang Mai 2,' Mrs Arroyo said of her own proposal.

She also said that she wanted China and other Asian powers attending a G20 summit in Washington on the financial crisis to voice the concerns of developing nations worried that the turmoil will hurt their poor the most.

'I think it's very clear now that the emerging economies should have a place at the table,' she said of the Washington summit in November.

She also said that the oil-wealthy countries of the Middle East could emerge from the economic upheavals as much more important investors in Asia.

'The credit crunch can be an opportunity rather than a crisis for the fiscally strong,' she said.

'I would say one set of very fiscally strong economies is Middle East countries, because of oil.' -- REUTERS