Asia take 4 years to recover

Asia take 4 years to recover

SINGAPORE (AP): Asia may take as long as four to five years to recover from its financial and economic crisis, a Singapore leader said in comments distributed to the news media yesterday.

"Overall, it may take four to five years for the region to recover...Really it depends on what the governments do," Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was quoted as saying in the June 8 edition of Fortune magazine.

His pessimistic assessment was made in an interview during a trip to the United States earlier this month, before dramatic events in Indonesia cast further doubt on the region's revival.

Lee said recovery will depend on whether Asian governments "do the right things and take the necessary measures and stay the course and convince markets - which means not just the investors from overseas, but even your own people and your own companies - that they have decisively shifted policy."