Buddy, spare me a rupiah, peso, dong ...

Buddy, spare me a rupiah, peso, dong ...

By Jonathan Thatcher

MANILA (Reuter): Asia has, or had, the world's most dynamic group of economies. It still has most of the world's poor and the way things are going could have more.

The recent Asian currency crisis, still unresolved, is likely to make life even tougher for the more than 800 million Asians who survive on at most one dollar a day, analysts said.

"Now the tiger economies are looking ugly, it might have some impact. Asian Development Bank (ADB) assistant chief economist, M.G. Quibria told Reuters.

"We don't expect any tremendous impact. But it's still very theoretical. This has happened just recently so we don't exactly know how this will play out," he added.

The issue of Asia's tarnished image of booming economic growth, which has done much to eradicate regional poverty in the last decade, is likely to dominate attention at this month's annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank meeting.

Earlier this year, Group of Seven leaders promised to provide the IMF with enough resources to help the poor, through its Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF).

ESAF provides cheap loans to poor countries to help them grapple with wrenching changes to their economies.

The IMF is also trying to secure more funding for its debt relief and loan packages but this week conceded the response had been positive rather than enthusiastic.

It said it may have to reopen the contentious debate over selling some of its gold to raise the cash.

International financial officials have already warned that the near catastrophe which faced Asia's currencies is bound to hit growth prospects and that would mean a rise in poverty levels.

Many countries in Asia are already looking at lowering their growth forecasts after their currencies plunged in a wave of speculative attacks over the last two months.

The countries most threatened are in south Asia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines and in the Indochina peninsula.

"The goal of economic development is poverty reduction and it is nowhere a more formidable task than in several of the countries of developing Asia," the ADB said in a recent report.

The key, analysts said, will be promoting growth by luring in private investment at a time when the traditional donors are tightening their purse strings.

That will be hard if investors are scared off by prospects of dimmer economic growth.

"(The lower growth) might mean cuts in public spending...which could hit the poor," one analyst said.

He pointed out that those countries with IMF programs or relying on World Bank loans are anyway under strong pressure to cut their spending and get the budgets in order.

If there is less revenue because of economic slowdown, they will have to cut even more.

The ADB's Quibria was a little more optimistic. He hoped that any shortfall in government outlays would mean no more money wasted on ostentatious infrastructure projects rather than snipping away at health and education budgets.

But even if the situation is not made any more worse, the future for Asia's poor looks as tough as ever.

"I think we have identified the problems but we are still groping for how best to cope with them," Quibria said.