Outlook for Asia a worry in 2002: Singapore poll

Singapore, Jan 1: Forty per cent of the international officials, academics and business leaders responding to a poll by Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper said they were "concerned" about the economic outlook for Asia in 2002, the newspaper said on Tuesday.

The newspaper, one of Asia’s most prominent dailies, said the poll respondents were 121 leading figures in government, academia and business from 11 Asian cities as well as Washington and Brussels.
Japan, Asia’s largest economy and a vital market for the region, is in a severe economic slump. It entered 2002 with unemployment at an all-time high of 5.5 per cent and its stock market at an 18-year low.
Singapore, a wealthy and ultra-modern city-state long seen as a symbol of Asia’s potential for spectacular economic growth, is currently in the worst recession in its 36-year history as a country.

Of those polled, 17 per cent said they were "pessimistic" or "unsure" about an Asian economic recovery this year, the newspaper said. "People can already see that (Japanese) premier Junichiro Koizumi’s best efforts with the ruling party are not working," the newspaper quoted the regional producer for entertainment company Fandango, as saying.

"The opposition party is not doing anything. The next generation of leaders are nowhere in sight," Iwakawa said in the report. "The mess looks likely to continue for five, 10 years, probably more."

Though some of those polled said they expected some recovery in the new year, many said an economic upturn could take a long time to filter down through countries’ populations.

— PTI