President Ramos says Asian miracle not over

President Ramos says Asian miracle not over

MANILA (Reuters): Philippine President Fidel Ramos expressed
optimism yesterday that East Asia would weather the currency
meltdown that has led some countries in the region to seek help
from the International Monetary Fund.

"The gloom that now pervades the Asian scene does not
necessarily mean that the Asian economic miracle is over, as some
western analysts have lately been saying," Ramos said in his
year-end report to the nation.

"East Asia has overcome far more serious challenges -- and
will do so again," he said, adding that he expected the region's
financial turmoil to calm this year.

Ramos' upbeat predictions came on a day when Asia's financial
markets took yet another heavy battering.

Southeast Asian currencies plunged to new lows, taking several
stock markets down with them. The Philippine peso touched an all-
time low of 45.209 to the dollar.

Ramos said the World Bank had forecast an average gross
domestic product growth rate of 7.6 percent for East Asia during
1997-2000.

That figure, although lower than those of the early 1990s,
will still make East Asia the fastest growing region over the
next 10 years, he said.

The crisis "underscores the lack of transparency and
supervision in financial systems of many of our neighboring
economies following market deregulation and the flow of foreign
capital into the region," he added.

The Philippines was a "victim and not an author" of the
financial storm now engulfing Asia, he said.

However, "...most of the medicine now being prescribed to end
the crisis are precisely what we have zealously and effectively
put in place in our country after the long years of
dictatorship," Ramos said.

The reforms the Philippines adopted after the 20-year rule of
the late President Ferdinand Marcos ended in 1986 include
transparency in finance and economic affairs, safeguards against
crony capitalism and the institution of democracy, he said.

"As currencies and stock prices have dropped to levels unknown
in a quarter century...our best policy is to look the crisis in
the eye," he said.

"For the Philippines, it is just a matter of time, of good
management and of resolute leadership," Ramos said.

"It will profit us nothing to lull ourselves into a false
senses of optimism. But neither should we give in to panic and
pessimism, which will only delay our recovery and put us in
further difficulties," he said.