President Ramos says Asian miracle not over<\/p>\n
MANILA (Reuters): Philippine President Fidel Ramos expressed
\noptimism yesterday that East Asia would weather the currency
\nmeltdown that has led some countries in the region to seek help
\nfrom the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n
\"The gloom that now pervades the Asian scene does not
\nnecessarily mean that the Asian economic miracle is over, as some
\nwestern analysts have lately been saying,\" Ramos said in his
\nyear-end report to the nation.<\/p>\n
\"East Asia has overcome far more serious challenges -- and
\nwill do so again,\" he said, adding that he expected the region's
\nfinancial turmoil to calm this year.<\/p>\n
Ramos' upbeat predictions came on a day when Asia's financial
\nmarkets took yet another heavy battering.<\/p>\n
Southeast Asian currencies plunged to new lows, taking several
\nstock markets down with them. The Philippine peso touched an all-
\ntime low of 45.209 to the dollar.<\/p>\n
Ramos said the World Bank had forecast an average gross
\ndomestic product growth rate of 7.6 percent for East Asia during
\n1997-2000.<\/p>\n
That figure, although lower than those of the early 1990s,
\nwill still make East Asia the fastest growing region over the
\nnext 10 years, he said.<\/p>\n
The crisis \"underscores the lack of transparency and
\nsupervision in financial systems of many of our neighboring
\neconomies following market deregulation and the flow of foreign
\ncapital into the region,\" he added.<\/p>\n
The Philippines was a \"victim and not an author\" of the
\nfinancial storm now engulfing Asia, he said.<\/p>\n
However, \"...most of the medicine now being prescribed to end
\nthe crisis are precisely what we have zealously and effectively
\nput in place in our country after the long years of
\ndictatorship,\" Ramos said.<\/p>\n
The reforms the Philippines adopted after the 20-year rule of
\nthe late President Ferdinand Marcos ended in 1986 include
\ntransparency in finance and economic affairs, safeguards against
\ncrony capitalism and the institution of democracy, he said.<\/p>\n
\"As currencies and stock prices have dropped to levels unknown
\nin a quarter century...our best policy is to look the crisis in
\nthe eye,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"For the Philippines, it is just a matter of time, of good
\nmanagement and of resolute leadership,\" Ramos said.<\/p>\n
\"It will profit us nothing to lull ourselves into a false
\nsenses of optimism. But neither should we give in to panic and
\npessimism, which will only delay our recovery and put us in
\nfurther difficulties,\" he said.<\/p>",
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