RI ranks second in dealing with crisis
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia ranks second best, after Malaysia, among Southeast Asian countries in dealing with the monetary and stock market crisis, according to a poll of Asian executives.
A survey by Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review magazine and Singapore-based Asia Business News (ABN) television showed that 42 percent of some 300 respondents picked Malaysia as having best dealt with the crisis.
Of the remaining respondents, 29 percent chose Indonesia, 21 percent selected the Philippines and 8 percent pinpointed Thailand.
The Dow Jones wire service, which owns 50 percent of ABN, said the poll respondents included business chairpeople, managing directors, and other top corporate executives in 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
In answering the question on which country would recover quickest from the crisis, 56 percent of respondents chose Malaysia, 20 percent favored the Philippines, 20 percent picked Indonesia and only 4 percent chose Thailand.
The region has been suffering from a currency and stock market crisis for several months since the devaluation of the Thai baht on July 2.
The Thai baht, Indonesian rupiah, Philippine peso and Malaysian ringgit have lost value against the U.S. dollar by 25 percent to 35 percent since July.
To cope with the crisis, the Indonesia government has taken several measures, including tightening rupiah liquidity, raising interest rates and canceling government and state-related projects worth about US$39 billion.
Dow Jones said 90 percent of the respondents believed the crisis would slow down the region's overall economic growth, with 100 percent of those polled in Malaysia and Indonesia believing so.
The crisis will also slow the pace of economic reform, according to 63 percent of respondents, which was expected by 89 percent of those polled in the Philippines and 75 percent in Hong Kong and Malaysia.
However, only 60 percent of respondents in Indonesia said economic reform would be slow in response to the crisis. (jsk)