Washington - The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday offered to trade 30 billion dollars each to the central banks of South Korea, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico in an effort to stop the financial crisis from spreading to the developing world. 

The creation of the new currency swap lines, which will remain open until April 30, comes as the International Monetary Fund created its own new emergency lending programme to help countries facing cash shortfalls amid the ongoing credit crisis. 

The dollar swap will "mitigate the spread of difficulties in obtaining US dollar funding in fundamentally sound and well managed economies," the Fed said in a statement. 

The Fed already operates similar currency swaps with 10 other central banks, including arrangements with New Zealand and Australia set up since September. It has removed limits on existing swap lines with four central banks, including the European Central Bank. (dpa)