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UNITED NATIONS: Japan is worried about a severe credit crunch, India wants regulations tightened while China expects the situation to get worse before it gets better -- the US financial crisis has been haunting Asian leaders as they took the rostrum at the UN General Assembly.
As the United States debated a 700 bn dollar Wall Street bailout package to ease the turmoil reverberating around the globe, the region's leadership was concerned that financial contagion could cause a repeat of the market turmoil that rocked Asia a decade ago.
The 1997-98 Asian turmoil led to a prolonged global debate for a revamp of the international financial architecture but no concrete efforts were made to tighten supervision of the financial system, the leaders said.
"There is a need for a new international initiative to bring structural reform in the world's financial system with more effective regulation and stonger systems of multilateral consultations and surveillance," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the UN summit last week.
"This must be designed in as inclusive a manner as possible," said the World Bank economist-turned politician.
He said that while industrialized nations could afford periods of slow growth as a result of upheavals in international financial markets, "developing countries certainly cannot."
The US crisis struck as Asian economies were grappling with a severe food and energy crisis.
Think tanks have shaved Asian economic growth forecast following the crisis, which peaked this month with the bankruptcy of top investment bank Lehman Brothers, government rescue of insurance giant AIG and collapse of Washington Mutual under the weight of bad mortgage bets.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in his speech, warned that the international impact of the US crisis could become "more serious," stressing the need for concerted efforts to contain the turmoil.
Chinese exports to the United States have been expanding rapidly and any slowdown due to the crisis could impact growth in the world's most populous nation.
UNITED NATIONS: Japan is worried about a severe credit crunch, India wants regulations tightened while China expects the situation to get worse before it gets better -- the US financial crisis has been haunting Asian leaders as they took the rostrum at the UN General Assembly.
As the United States debated a 700 bn dollar Wall Street bailout package to ease the turmoil reverberating around the globe, the region's leadership was concerned that financial contagion could cause a repeat of the market turmoil that rocked Asia a decade ago.
The 1997-98 Asian turmoil led to a prolonged global debate for a revamp of the international financial architecture but no concrete efforts were made to tighten supervision of the financial system, the leaders said.
"There is a need for a new international initiative to bring structural reform in the world's financial system with more effective regulation and stonger systems of multilateral consultations and surveillance," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the UN summit last week.
"This must be designed in as inclusive a manner as possible," said the World Bank economist-turned politician.
He said that while industrialized nations could afford periods of slow growth as a result of upheavals in international financial markets, "developing countries certainly cannot."
The US crisis struck as Asian economies were grappling with a severe food and energy crisis.
Think tanks have shaved Asian economic growth forecast following the crisis, which peaked this month with the bankruptcy of top investment bank Lehman Brothers, government rescue of insurance giant AIG and collapse of Washington Mutual under the weight of bad mortgage bets.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in his speech, warned that the international impact of the US crisis could become "more serious," stressing the need for concerted efforts to contain the turmoil.
Chinese exports to the United States have been expanding rapidly and any slowdown due to the crisis could impact growth in the world's most populous nation.