Crisis also affects Britain

Crisis also affects Britain

LONDON (Reuters): The British government might be left with a bill of more than three billion pounds sterling used to underwrite loans to Asian countries if the Pacific Rim nations default on their debts, the Independent newspaper said.

Figures due to be published next month show a total of 3.2 billion sterling ($4.9 billion) in loans to be repaid by Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, the newspaper reported. All the loans were backed by official British government guarantees.

More than a third of the money was spent on British weapons, and other deals, including the 300 million stg sale of 16 Hawk jets to Indonesia will still go ahead, the report said. Some of the money was also used for the Pergau dam project in Malaysia.

The newspaper quoted a spokesman for the government's Export Credit Guarantee Department as saying that even if the government had to pay out, it would hope to recoup the money when the Asian economy improved.