Indonesia's economic and political future also rested on free and fair elections in June, World Bank East Asia and Pacific vice president Jean-Michel Severino said at a conference which agreed to establish a regional information sharing facility.

"We are seeing early signs of economic recovery but it is still a very fragile situation," he told reporters in Sydney. "It is a medium-term endeavour, a lot of work still needs to be done," said Severino, adding economic restructuring in Asia could take years.

Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said the representatives of 27 countries and nine international institutions which attended the Asia development conference had generally agreed that the worst of the crisis was over.

"It would be fair to say that the mood is that the Asianeconomic crisis has bottomed," Downer told reporters, adding it would take up to five years for the worst affected economies to return to levels before the crisis hit in 1997.

"To get back to where they were in the middle of 1997 could take between two and five years," he said. Downer said delegates had accepted an Australian proposal to establish an Internet-based Asia Recovery Information Centre within the next few months to share information between regional economies and international donors.

He said Australia would finance the project, although no precise details about cost or timing had been settled. The centre is likely to have its headquarters through the Asian Development Bank in Manila, Downer said.

Delegates also agreed it was important to monitor the social impacts of the crisis to ensure the momentum towards complete economic recovery was maintained.

"In order to maintain this momentum, social cohesion or solidarity needs to be promoted," said Shigemitsu Sugisaki, an InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) deputy managing director.

Sugisaki agreed that regional economic recovery was imminent but also urged speedier structural reforms. "Having economic stabilisation in place, now a recovery in Asia is imminent or already underway in all the crisis countries," Sugisaki told a news conference.

"To make that process even more sustainable there is a consensus that structural reforms need to be accelerated, especially in the corporate and financial sectors," he said.

Severino cited Indonesia as the country which would take the longest to resolve its economic problems, while South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia were at a more advanced stage of recovery.

Indonesia must ensure its June 7 national elections were free and fair to avoid a collapse of the recovery process, he said.

"It's absolutely critical the elections take place in a fair, transparent, good way that allows for the building of a strong and legitimate government," Severino said.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 200million people, was one of the last Asian nations to succumb to the region's economic crisis. Subsequent social unrest and riots forced then president Suharto to quit in May 1998.

"Indonesia is in a very deep crisis that has very important political roots" Severino said.