Southeast Asia's currency crisis

The crisis that began with the problems of the Thai baht has enveloped several other Southeast Asian economies, notably Malaysia's.

The state of its stock and currency markets has regional implications as well.

Thus, referring to the peso's plight, a foreign exchange trader in the Philippines blames it on "the Mahathir scare", or the Malaysian Prime Minister's call to regulate currency trading.

Whatever the precise extent to which the Malaysian leader's comments are indeed responsible, it is undeniable that the economic problems of his country do not stop at its borders.

What Southeast Asia is facing, in differing degrees, though in an interrelated manner, is an issues which must not be allowed to grow into a sustained crisis of confidence.

-- The Straits Times, Singapore