Asean's
Finance Ministers Brace for Global Downturn
KUALA
LUMPUR- Southeast Asia's finance ministers said Sunday that they are
bracing for lower growth this year, expecting the plunge in the US
stock market and Japan's fragile economy to put smaller countries at
risk.
With
some Southeast Asian currencies sinking to levels last
seen during the
Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998, the ministers said in a
statement that they
would
be taking "pre-emptive measures to mitigate the economic
slowdown."
Asean
ministers concluded a two-day meeting early Sunday.
Officials
met later in the day with representatives from Northeast powerhouses
Japan, China and South Korea.
The
Southeast Asian ministers issued a statement noting their economies
had bounced back in 2000 from the Asian crisis, collectively posting
5.3 percent growth, but said the outlook this year was "significantly
more adverse."
Recent
currency volatility, particularly the sinking Japanese yen, had
already created uncertainty in financial markets that could harm
growth prospects for the region, the statement said.
A
Japanese official told reporters that Tokyo would take
"concrete action" to curb extreme fluctuations in the yen.
But he declined to say at what level Japan would intervene.
Kan
Yagi, deputy director general of the international bureau of Japan's
Finance Ministry, said it was unlikely that the yen would sink as
low as 140 to the US dollar. It was trading at 124.68 late Friday.
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