KYOTO -- Asian nations, led by powerhouses Japan and China, were expected to take an ambitious step toward pooling the region's vast foreign currency reserves on Saturday so Asia can weather financial crises like the one that battered the continent a decade ago.

Few are predicting an imminent meltdown like the one in 1997, but bitter memories of plunging currencies, austere reforms and a slow road to recovery have pushed a now wealthy Asia to better safeguard its future.

The idea of pooling part of the region's enormous $3.1 trillion in reserves -- or about 65 percent of the world's total -- was expected to be discussed Saturday by finance ministers from Japan, China, South Korea and their counterparts from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

A day earlier, Japanese Finance Minister Koji Omi said the region should expand a system now in place that acts as a safety net by supplying emergency funds through bilateral currency swaps -- a deal known as the Chiang Mai Initiative. Implementing a multilateral system would strengthen the protections, he said.

"Pooling those funds in a multilateralization process would constitute a major step forward," Omi said.

Such an agreement would mark an important breakthrough in financial integration for the region, which has been building closer ties as a firewall against currency crises. It would allow Asian countries to first try countering a local crisis before resorting to outside help from groups like the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF drew much criticism in the 1997-98 crisis for imposing austere measures such as raising interest rates and cutting public spending in exchange for emergency loans.

The finance ministers from Japan, China and South Korea are believed to have discussed the matter on Friday before meeting their ASEAN counterparts on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting, which is being held through Monday in the western Japanese city of Kyoto.

Officials at the ADB applauded new safety measures that might stabilize the region in a crisis.

"If there's one lesson we learned from '97, it is that you better stand on your own two feet and you better be able to help yourself before others help you," ADB Managing Director General Rajat Nag said. "I think there should be a mechanism by which countries of the region come to each other's help."