Crisis-hit Asia has surplus

Crisis-hit Asia has surplus

LONDON (Dow Jones): The five countries worst affected by the Asian financial crisis had a combined trade surplus of US$85 billion in 1998 compared with a combined trade deficit of $15 billion the previous year, a World Trade Organization official said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a conference on Asia organized by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, WTO Deputy Director General Chulsu Kim said exports from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines fell by 3.5 percent last year.

That decline was dwarfed by the sharp fall in imports to those countries, which tumbled by 30 percent.

Kim said the export boom that had been expected to follow the depreciation of Asian currencies has "not materialized," and that the counterparts of the five countries' large surpluses are trade deficits in fast growing economies, particularly the U.S.