罗汉国际经贸高级英语精读5-Text

Asia’s Economic Crisis and Changing Competitiveness

in the World Market

Economic Crisis Ends Years of High Growth

Asian countries achieved outstanding economic performance for several decades before the economic crisis occurred. The annual GDP growth rate in ASEAN averaged close to 8 percent over the last decade. Per capita income levels in Asia have increased remarkably, with Korea accomplishing a nearly ten-fold rise occurring over the last 30 years. Asian developing countries attracted almost half of the world total capital inflows and their share in world exports has nearly doubled reaching almost one-fifth in the last decade. For all these reasons, the developing and emerging market economies of Asia have been a major engine of growth in the world economy.

The causes of the currency crisis that erupted in Thailand in the summer of 1997 and then spread to neighboring countries, are various and differ for each country. For Korea and Japan the main problems pointed out as causes are the structural weaknesses, especially in their financial systems. For the past several years both countries have experienced recessions and Japan’s growth, in particular, has been very modest since the early 1990s. In contrast, the Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia were enjoying rapid economic growth but had developed large external deficits and also suffered from extremely fragile financial sectors. However, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, considered the great Chinese economic bloc, have been enjoying rapid growth and very strong external positions that include large trade surpluses and very sizable foreign exchange reserves.

The Crisis Is Not Over

Various policy measures have been announced and executed in Thailand and Korea, both of which have strictly adhered to IMF-supported programs. The Thai baht has shown a relatively stable trend owing to the government’s strong economic reform drive. The Korean economy is also recovering after implementing a severe macroeconomic policies [sic] that was promised in exchange for receiving a multilateral financial bail-out package. Malaysia is coping with its currency and financial crisis alone, without rescue funds from the IMF, by decreasing the growth rate and delaying big projects.

Indonesia has faced increasingly difficult economic problems in light of its complicated domestic political disorder. Indonesia fell out of favor with multilateral lenders and supporters including the IMF, World Bank, the U.S. and Japan, among others, by planning a 33 percent increase in budget expenditures and by trying to introduce a new currency regime, the currency boards like those in force in Hong Kong and Argentina. Revised arrangements were settled between the Indonesian