IMF Warns Again about Threat of Economic Crisis
Wednesday, 20 February, 2008 | 14:31 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has once again warned about the threat of a global economy crisis.

As quoted from its official website, IMF' Managing Director Dominque Strauss-Kahn stated that the financial crisis was already affecting the real sector.

Industrial and developing countries must share policies in terms of macro-economic and financial market sectors.

This is in order to minimizing the effect of the threatened crisis that is predicted will hamper world economic growth.

“The world economy has entered a difficult time, the financial crisis is already affecting the real economy,” said Strauss-Kahn in a speech to the Indian Council of Research on International Economic Relations in New Delhi, India.

It is predicted that the crisis will cause US economic growth down to 4.1 percent this year from the previously targeted 4.9 percent.

Strauss-Kahn went on to say that developing countries must join with developed countries in order to respond to the situation with macro-economic policies.

Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew has said he considers that Asia will be strong in facing the threat of a global economic crisis.

The fantastic economic growth of China' and India will make the Asian region resistant in facing a crisis.

“I believe this is the first time a crisis has hit America but has not affected Asia,” he said.

The economies of China and India are predicted to grow between eight and ten percent this year.

Around 40 percent of Asian exports are to the United States.

Lee Kuan Yew went on to say that despite half this export value being cut, the negative effect has not been felt too much by countries in the Asian region.

However, Bank Indonesia Senior Deputy Governor, Miranda Goeltom, has pointed out that Indonesia is not resistant to the threat of a global economic crisis.

It is expected that both China and India, which are considered to be strong in facing the crisis, will revise their economic targets.

This is why, said Miranda, BI will sustain the standard interest rate around eight percent for the first quarter of this year.

Dewi Rina | Eko Nopiansyah | Bangkok Post