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US$JPY 78.90000-1.31000 -1.63%

Eurozone finance ministers on Monday vowed to beef up a rescue mattress for troubled economies such as Greece as they went to battle to contain debt crisis contagion threatening to engulf Italy and Spain.  After more than eight hours of talks held as the euro-crisis rattled markets, endangering the single currency area, ministers from the 17-nation eurozone agreed a range of measures to end weeks of widening differences that have fed financial uncertainty.  The ministers "reaffirmed their absolute commitment to safeguard financial stability in the euro area," in a statement that pledged measures "to improve the euro area's systemic capacity to resist contagion risk."  Among them was a move to strengthen the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) set up in the aftermath of last year's Greece crisis, which has a current lending capacity of 440 billion euros ($A583.24 billion) .  Useful for smaller economies, the fund would be hard put to fly to the rescue of Italy and Spain, the eurozone's third and fourth largest economies.  The combined economies of crisis-hit Greece, Portugal and Ireland represent only half the size of Italy's.