3M upbeat about Asia outlook despite crisis hitting the area

3M upbeat about Asia outlook despite crisis hitting the area

SINGAPORE (Reuters): U.S. Industrial conglomerate Minnesota
Mining and Manufacturing Co. (3M) is upbeat about its future in
Asia despite the region's economic downturn, Executive Vice
President Ronald Baukol said over the weekend.

"3M is definitely operating as if these things (economic
conditions) are going to be relatively difficult, but we are
poised and definitely looking forward to an upturn," Baukol told
Reuters in an interview.

"If there's additional downturn, we are ready for that as
well."

Baukol said the company was hopeful for an economic recovery
in Asia as it sees tremendous potential growth in the region.

"We hope that in 1999, there'll be some economic growth in
Asia," he said.

"Certainly for the longer term, we look for Asia to continue
to be a real growth engine for the world."

"It's our hope that the economies that have had the greatest
difficulty over the last year-and-a-half are starting to settle
and hopefully would be able to reach the equilibrium from when
they would start to grow again...primarily in Taiwan and South
Korea."

Baukol said the company would benefit from Asia's growing
electronics sector.

"A large amount of electronic manufacturing exists in Asia and
that's a definite (growth) area," he said.

He cited the telecommunications and health care sectors as the
other important growth sectors.

"As Asian economies mature and develop, they are going to be
wanting more and more health care products for more and more
people."

Asked if the political and economic turmoil in Indonesia has
affected 3M's business outlook, he noted Indonesia contributes
less than one percent to the company's sales and profit.

"At the moment, Indonesia doesn't have a very great percentage
of our sales and profits. We think it will not have a material
downside effect," Baukol said.

He said 3M continued to see good prospects in Indonesia as the
country continued to develop its infrastructure and exploit its
natural resources.

As for developing economies like Vietnam, Baukol said the
company "will expand as markets and new customers and conditions
enable us to do so.

"We will continue to expand manufacturing as additional
markets develop and of course as we bring more products into the
(Vietnamese) market as well."

Baukol was in Singapore over the weekend for the commissioning
of the company's new S$400 million plant.

The Singapore microflex plant is expected to reach production
of one million circuits per week by April. Microflex is a
flexible circuit interconnection product used to link
semiconductor chips.