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Singapore: stands out from the
general
gloom about southeast Asian economies |
With the region's currencies crashing down around them
early last month, the finance ministers of the 10 member states of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) sat in a room in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that must have seemed more like a bunker.
They asked themselves, as their currencies fell, how it all seemed
to be going horribly wrong - again. After all they were still
making the right noises about reform. How could they have been
found out so quickly? The truth is, investors haven't believed the
spiel for some time.
The fact that many of the region's economies had seemingly
recovered so dramatically had led to complacency. It meant that
they didn't bother to finish the prescribed course of antibiotics.
And unlike the last time their currencies dropped to similar
levels, the US economy is not going to pull them out...
