Ramos says Asian crisis is wake-up call

Ramos says Asian crisis is wake-up call

HONG KONG (Reuters): Asia's economic crisis is a "wake-up call", not a major turning point in the region's growth prospects, Philippine President Fidel Ramos said yesterday.

Recent financial turmoil, rather than shocking the region into protectionist mode, was a timely reminder of the benefits of openness, Ramos said.

"The current financial crisis is likely to be less a psychological turning point than a wake-up call for our countries," Ramos told the 1997 East Asia Economic Summit organized by the World Economic Forum.

"It is obviously unrealistic to pronounce East Asia's period of high growth as over."

Southeast Asia's economic fundamentals were still strong, with the World Bank forecasting an average annual economic growth rate for the region of 7.6 percent from 1997 to 2006, confirming East Asia as the world's highest growth region, Ramos said.

But Ramos said strong regional stability, underpinned by increasing economic interdependence, was an important precursor to quick recovery from the troubles.

"The remedy lies not in turning away from the world but in embracing it even more closely," Ramos said.

Constructive engagement and interdependence must be fully supported to sustain regional peace and prosperity, he said.

"And these, we are convinced, trade, investment and development cooperation will promote," Ramos said.

"We of the Philippines are bringing down all economic barriers to globalization in the belief that regional security depends primarily on peaceful commerce rather than on military power, and that the future lies in economic interdependence," he said.

But nations face some hard choices in the coming months to counter the economic upheaval.

Economic management would determine how well nations recovered and some painful adjustments were going to be required in some countries, Ramos said.

He said the Philippines was positioning itself to benefit from a return to strong growth, partly by building an information technology agenda in cooperation with the world's biggest players.

Ramos said he would meet Microsoft Corp's Bill Gates and other industry leaders during a visit to North America for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting next month.

Anticipating much closer investor scrutiny of political and socio-economic regimes in East Asia, Ramos pledged to speed up economic reform efforts throughout the remaining eight months of his tenure as president.

Confirming his decision not to run for re-election, Ramos said he had persuaded the Philippines legislature to focus on intensifying economic reform rather than changing the constitution to allow him to run for a second term.

The Philippines, along with Thailand and Indonesia, was forced to effectively devalue its currency earlier this year as investor fears grew over the health of its economy.