Several Asian countries are looking at spending billions of dollars on shares to support plunging stock markets in a move likely to be welcomed by global investors who fear that emerging markets may be about to suffer further dramatic falls.

The development follows a 13 per cent fall this year in the MSCI Asia-Pacific index, which today looks as though it will end the month with its worst first-half performance since 1992, when it sank by 23 per cent as the Japanese economic bubble deflated.