Asian Financial Crisis

1. General Impact of Economic Crisis
General impact of economic crisis could be summed as widening gap between the haves and have nots. The major victims are those who are living on their working income. The benefited are those who are living on their finance interest and stock speculation. Small or middles sized manufacturing sectors doomed to be bankrupted because of shortage of capital, and high interest rate. Under the turmoil of crisis, the poor became the poorer, and the rich became the richer. Read the rest of this entry »

EVENT: The IMF last week approved a 280 million dollar credit tranche for Manila.

SIGNIFICANCE: Rising non-performing loans, congressional opposition to the budget and inconsistent policies are threatening to undermine confidence in the business environment.

ANALYSIS: Although the Philippines has weathered the regional crisis better than many of its South-east Asian neighbours, the economy is nevertheless showing signs of slowing. On October 30, the IMF announced that it had approved a 280 million dollar credit tranche for Manila, as part of the country’s 1.4 billion dollar standby loan facility. Read the rest of this entry »

The Korean standby agreement with IMF was signed in early December and the programme was to last three years. Financial assistance involved is $57 billion, the largest ever bailout. Contributions for the package came from IMF ($21 billion), WB and ADB ($14 billion) and various industrialised countries ($22 billion). Read the rest of this entry »