Southeast Asian finance ministers said today they were confident the region would achieve stronger economic growth this year based on projected recovery of the world economy, but cautioned that major risks remained.
In a joint statement after a two-day meeting in Yangon, the ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations forecast 3.5-4 per cent real GDP growth for their region this year, which they also attributed to sound macro-economic policies, structural reforms and closer inter-ASEAN cooperation.
They said the global slowdown, worsened by the September 11 attacks on the United States, had caused growth in ASEAN to slow to 2.8 per cent in 2001, but the US outlook had since improved.
Although the outlook for the Japanese economy remains uncertain, there are signs of a turnaround in the US and some European economies in the first quarter, it said. The signs point towards gradual recovery in the global economy with increased momentum in the second half of 2002. That would boost ASEAN's exporters, and domestic demand would also strengthen because of fiscal expansion and higher incomes.
"The general message is that every one of us is rather upbeat. Although a couple of months ago it was a rather different psychology, now I think we are seeing that things are looking up," Indonesia's Finance Minister Boediono told Reuters.