Washington lends $30b to four nations

The Federal Reserve agreed to provide $30 billion each to the central banks of Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore, expanding its effort to unfreeze money markets to emerging nations for the first time.

The Fed set up "liquidity swap facilities with the central banks of these four large systemically important economies" effective until April 30, the central bank said on Wednesday in a statement.

The arrangements aim "to mitigate the spread of difficulties in obtaining US dollar funding",