TWN Info Service on Finance and Development (May10/02) The Star
( In the past developing counties including in The global
economy is slipping into a new crisis, with It is quite
surprising The developing countries affected had always been
accused of causing their own problems, with the faults variously
attributed corruption, mismanagement, bad governance and crony
capitalism. But it is increasingly difficult to ignore
structural factors that contributed to the financial crises
through the years. If the lessons had been learnt from the Asian
crisis that started in 1997, perhaps this European crisis would
not have happened. On the other hand, it is also vital to learn
from Europe's crisis so that In Africa and These crises exploded
the myth that foreign loans to governments were safe as they
could not default. The pendulum then swung and it was thought to
be safe to lend to the private sector as it would use the loans
for profitable ventures. The Asian crisis arose when too much
foreign funds went to local comp