... but full recovery will be
long and slow
THERE ARE all sorts of hints of incipient recovery in the Far East - an area in crisis until late last year.
International reports indicate that Japan, for example, is showing healthier signs - with some credit afforded to the government's moves to stabilise the situation last October.
The recovery in that country's stock market is proving durable. Since last October the price of over-the-counter shares has risen by 86%. The main share index, meantime, has also shown a 22% rise since the beginning of this year.
Business confidence is reported to be on the up-and-up, and the regular business crashes of a year ago have eased. Latest figures show that the number of corporate bankruptcies has dropped by 40% since that time of ruin.
But interest rates remain high, and advisers are promoting further reform and restructuring of the economy before Japan can expect real recovery.
Korea is also singled out as a tiger with healing wounds. Its restructuring was major and immediate - both politically and economically - and its companies have tightened belts in attempts to become more competitive again.
China (and its new state of Hong Kong) is getting minus marks.
Fund managers holding Far East portfolios are expressing doubts about the Chinese authorities continually harping on about no need for devaluation, when all the signs are that the economy is in a slow-down.
The fear is, one told the Weekly Telegraph, that this might affect Hong Kong. Although he does suggest that this industrious and ingenious island state may have managed to stay aloof from the overborder proceedings.
However, an opposite assumption can also be made. That Hong Kong would certainly benefit if China's position manages to come right.
China (and its new state of Hong Kong)
is getting minus marks
While the rest of the region is also beginning to recover, there are still two countries where socio-political unrest is putting brakes on an economic return to health.
Malaysia and Indonesia are facing riots - and even minor civil wars in the latter - and any hopes for their economies rest entirely on their future governance. Not necessarily too high a hope in the short-term in Malaysia, where an unpopular regime is resorting to bully-boy tactics to quell the growing opposition.
Indonesia, it has been pointed out, is just too many islands and disparate factions trying to blend into one state entity.
While recovery is the word of the moment, long and slow are also added in the quotes attributed to many investment advisers.
By Alan Peat
