On their feet again?
A string of recent setbacks will not stall East Asia’s recovery. But
if the former tigers really want to come roaring back, the region’s
reformers must redouble their efforts IT DID not cost nearly as much as
the half-built towers and empty golf courses that now litter South-East
Asia. But the monument to the region’s economies, standing in a pleasant
park in Kuala Lumpur, now seems just as foolhardy a project. Commissioned
before the region’s financial collapse, the marble sculpture depicts
a series of vertical columns, arranged in an arc, with each one much taller
than the last. Until two years ago, that unrelenting upward curve seemed
the perfect depiction of East Asia’s dynamic economies. As did its title:
“Growth”.
No longer. During the collapse of the past two years, the sculpture
would have seemed far more appropriate turned on its head. And lately,
even the reports of a rapid recovery have begun to appear sadly exaggerated.
This week South Korea announced the spectacular break-up of Daewoo,
the country’s second-biggest conglomerate (see article). In Thailand, non-performing
loans are still rising, five months after the finance minister said
they had peaked. Malaysia’s state-owned oil giant, Petronas,
has been bailing out favoured companies. And a series of Indonesian scandals
suggests that the country remains mired in corruption.
All this bad news must, however, be placed in perspective. Although
it casts doubt on the extent of the region’s structural reforms,
it will do little in the short term to dent Asia’s prospects for recovery
(see chart). In South Korea, for example, the rebound has been extraordinary.
Year-on-year industrial production was up 30% in June, and private economists
are now forecasting 5-8% GDP growth this year. Thailand and Malaysia are
also turning around quickly. Even Indonesia, which has sustained a 20%
drop in output, is now expected to start expanding in the second half of
this year.
Although some economists have predicted a rebound, its speed and
extent have taken even optimists by surprise. Take the change in sentiment
in the region’s stockmarkets. Over the past 12 months those in Thailand
and Malaysia have doubled. The main indexes in Seoul and Singapore
are now above where they were in mid-1997, when the collapse began. Markets
have slipped of late, but investors are still cheery. As they should be.
Despite the slow pace of reforms, the mounting signs of recovery
are unequivocally good news. After two years of fierce contraction,
the economies of East Asia are still operating at well below capacity.
But with luck, the vacant offices and deserted golf courses will soon begin
to fill up, as life in the region slowly returns to normal. But that
will not be the end of the story. For “normal” may prove a rude disappointment
to Asia’s workers, investors and firms.
Purring not roaring
To many of them, recovery means the phenomenal growth rates of the early 1990s. Yet such growth will be much harder to come by than it was in the past, when the region could expand easily by throwing more people, money and trees at its problems. For all their advantages—and they still have many—Asia’s economies are more developed now than they were a decade ago. They will retain the advantages of youth for many years yet. But growth will depend less on deploying more people and capital, and more on something rather harder—raising productivity. That demands thorough reforms. Which is why the news from Asia is so discouraging, even as its economies perk up. If Asia’s governments fail to deliver on their promised reforms, they will have failed to lay the groundwork for the more efficient use of capital and faster growth in productivity. At best, such a failure would be a drag on economies that will almost certainly continue to grow anyway during the next decade. At worst, the lost opportunity could enshrine Kuala Lumpur’s “Growth” monument as a symbol of the past.
This does not mean that Asia should focus solely on the long term, and take its imminent recovery for granted. Recessions have a way of grasping from the grave, and the region is still exposed to a number of potential hazards, especially shocks from abroad. But it does mean that the region’s leaders should distinguish the impact of the business cycle from Asia’s imposing collection of structural challenges.
Without such a distinction, it is hard to make sense of the mixed news that is streaming out of the region—or the market’s reactions to it. News about the pace of reforms undoubtedly affects confidence in the region, and also has some effect on the recovery itself. But for the most part, the litany of proposed reforms has less to do with terminating Asia’s recent recession than with making the next one less vicious and promoting faster growth in between. So it should not be surprising that the recession is ending, even though so few reforms have actually been carried out.
Recovery has, nevertheless, taken many people by surprise. Less than a year ago—after Russia had defaulted on its debts and a prominent hedge fund had collapsed—the world financial system seemed to be teetering on the brink. And, as one ministerial summit after another failed to deliver solutions, it seemed the region, scene of one economic “miracle”, needed another.
Instead, far-fetched as it seemed at the time, the recession appears to be ending for the reasons recessions usually end: because households, investors and firms have at last begun to consume and invest again. Statistics, as always, have played their part: after such a virulent downswing, year-on-year comparisons of output were, sooner or later, bound to start looking better.
But there has certainly been a turnaround—even though economists will
no doubt bicker for years about what caused it. The impressive resilience
of America’s economy, aided by interest-rate cuts late last year, has helped
bolster the whole world. Fresh signs of growth from Western Europe and
Japan have also helped. The IMF will no doubt want to credit its rescue
packages for Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand, along with its insistence
that those countries raise interest rates to bolster their currencies.
Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister of Malaysia, will be just as
quick to denounce those policies—which he ditched in mid-stream—and give
credit to his capital controls for stabilising his economy. (Some in his
government have even suggested that Malaysia’s controls saved the region.)
Tiger balm
Also crucial, however, was the decision to abandon the restrictive fiscal
policies initially urged on many countries by the IMF. After at first
tightening their belts, Indonesia and South Korea will be running deficits
of more than 6% of GDP this year, with Thailand and Malaysia not far behind
(see chart). Some will pay for rescuing banks. But most will go towards
traditional fiscal-stimulus programmes, including everything from tax breaks
to infrastructure projects.
The direct effects of those deficits are only now beginning to be felt.
But the mere expectation of their arrival appears to have given the region
a lift. One good example is Malaysia, where middle-class families are eagerly
forking out for expensive items such as homes and cars. But elsewhere,
too, consumers are beginning to spend again. In Thailand, consumer confidence
has risen so sharply that the government has had to try to discourage well-off
Thais from reverting to an old habit—the shopping holiday abroad. Firms
are responding to the improved outlook by rebuilding their stocks. That
in turn is playing a leading role in the upturn in the business cycle—especially
in heavily industrialised South Korea.
As domestic demand revs up, so do exports within the region. Such trade, which accounts for around half of the total in the region, helped to accelerate its collapse. The severity of the downturn hammered exports: trade balances turned positive initially only because credit lines dried up and imports fell even faster.
Now, export volumes are beginning to lift off (see chart), especially
within the region. The even more rapid recovery of imports is actually
eating into some countries’ current-account surpluses, but the process—confirming
that a demand-driven recovery is under way—is a healthy one. In addition,
Malaysia and the Philippines, which have big electronics sectors, have
been helped by exports outside the region. And South Korean conglomerates,
with well-honed marketing skills, have altered their export patterns.
The obvious risks to this recovery come from outside South-East Asia.
Since a stirring Japanese economy has helped provide some demand for everything
from electronics to tourist services to timber, a reversal there
would be bad news. If China, which has kept growing through the downturn,
were to have a crisis of its own, accompanied by a sharp devaluation of
its currency, the yuan, regional confidence would, at the least,
take a knock. Should America’s economy—and especially its demand for electronics—falter,
it would also deliver a sharp blow. And then there is the financial havoc
that might be caused by a Wall Street collapse.
There is also another hazard lying within the region: its ailing banks.
Compared even with other emerging markets, bank credit plays a huge
role in East Asia’s economies. In Malaysia, for example, total loans outstanding
at the end of May amounted to almost 150% of GDP. In Brazil the corresponding
proportion at the end of 1998 was 43%. If firms are to keep pace with demand
growth, they must borrow to do so. Since demand has been so weak during
the past two years, the banks’ problems have not been a constraint on many
healthy firms. Such companies had little desire for investment capital
and chose to run down their current assets rather than borrow
at sky-high interest rates.
But now that rates have come down and demand is picking up, those firms
will need fresh working capital. If the banks are not prepared to lend,
the recovery could stall. That is why the rush to repair Asia’s banks has
been a race against the clock.
Capital inadequacy
Despite these risks, Asia’s economies are indeed showing clear signs of bouncing back. But the long list of proposed reforms to laws, regulations and business practices has had little to do with it. Those reforms, touted as essential by the World Bank, the IMF and foreign investors, are not intended to stimulate demand so much as to improve the efficiency with which Asia’s economies marshal their resources. That means: stronger banking systems with more foreign involvement; less meddling with the local price of capital; more transparent dealings between governments and the private sector; a better system for handling bankruptcy; and incentives for people to learn more and to make less wasteful use of natural resources. The most pressing changes involve capital markets. The region’s economies have simply outgrown their existing financial systems. Reform should have twin aims: to fix the banks so they become more reliable; and to create a broader array of mechanisms for bringing savers and borrowers together.
The starting point must be the banks’ ghastly ailments. Their origin
is clear enough: for far too long, money was lent by banks that did not
care about credit risk to companies that cared even less. Bad loans were
replaced with fresh ones like so much dirty linen. Worse, many banks were
part of bigger business groups, into which they funnelled bank deposits,
unhampered by regulatory checks. Of course, Asia’s economies differ, and
this description does not fit all of them perfectly. Singapore and the
Philippines were spared disaster partly because they prevented their banks
from getting into trouble. In Malaysia, too, bank regulation was in many
ways prudent—one reason its economy has fared better than some neighbours.
In South Korea, by contrast, the government actually ordered
banks to make bad loans, lest they fail to do so of their own accord.
Efforts to clean up the banking messes have been under way ever since
the crisis struck. But recapitalising banks and buying up bad loans will
not cure the underlying problem—which is that Asian bankers are a menace.
If that is to change, banks will have to be infused with new credit cultures
and then carefully watched. In some places the watchers are getting help:
the World Bank, for example, has been helping to train bank regulators
in Thailand. But without more foreign competition, and an injection of
new expertise, the region’s banks will always remain suspect.
That is why so many investors were encouraged last year, when countries
such as Thailand and South Korea were promising to open up their banking
sectors to foreigners. But after two years, far too little has happened.
Thailand has sold one bank to the Netherlands’ ABN AMRO, and another to
Singapore’s DBS. In South Korea, negotiations to sell two local banks have
been stalled for months. Malaysia’s banking system, too, appears to be
in trouble. The banks’ balance sheets are healing, but the government has
recently announced a merger plan to force all 21 banks, along with merchant
banks and finance companies, to merge into six big financial services groups.
It has also named the six lead banks, and appears to have rewarded loyalists.
And then there is Indonesia, whose banking system is as corrupt as
any in the world. Out of the filth, one bank emerged earlier this year
as fit enough to be bought by a big global player. That was Bank Bali,
which was due to sell a 20% stake to Standard Chartered. Alas, that deal
too has been jeopardised by corruption scandals.
Even if the region had decent banks, some companies would inevitably
go bust. Yet Asia’s bankruptcy laws are in even worse shape than its banks.
Thailand passed fresh bankruptcy and foreclosure laws earlier this year,
and Indonesia altered its own rules last year under pressure from the IMF.
But in neither country do investors have any faith in the courts, and the
mountains of bad debt continue to sit and rot.
Besides bank loans, East Asia will also need to develop new ways for
firms to raise capital. In particular, there is a long-felt need for deeper
local-currency bond markets. More developed capital markets demand companies
that offer more transparency, stricter auditing and more rights for minority
shareholders. One country that has made progress in these regards is South
Korea. Indeed, in some ways it may have gone too far, allowing even the
puniest minority shareholder to cause trouble. The others, however, have
a long way to go.
Beyond the cycle
In one area, Asia’s reformers do appear to have made great progress. That is monetary policy. Neil Saker, of SG Securities in Singapore, argues that central banks have learned one of the chief lessons of the financial collapse—that they cannot follow targets for both inflation and the exchange rate—and have rightly chosen to stress price stability. That new attitude is now being tested, as inflows of foreign capital are putting upward pressure on currencies. Many government ministers will want to keep interest and exchange rates low. But Mr Saker believes central bankers will maintain their focus, and raise interest rates if necessary. Better monetary policy would indeed be a huge improvement, since misguided exchange rate policies had much to do with the region’s collapse. But this change of focus itself serves to highlight the importance of carrying out further reforms. When exchange rates were kept at artificially high levels, East Asia’s economies were able to borrow in dollars at ludicrously cheap rates, reinforcing a broader tendency to invest without regard to the cost. If the region’s economies are to grow strongly in the future, they will not—please, not again—be able to resort to such short-term tricks.
Fortunately for Asia, it doesn’t need them. Its economies were growing rapidly long before the bubble formed, and could do so again. But if the economies are to get the most from some of their great advantages—high savings rates and clever entrepreneurs, to name but two—they will have to make better use of their existing resources.
Besides overhauling capital markets, there are many other ways to achieve
this. One is to keep business and the government from mingling too closely,
so that government contracts go to the best (rather than the best connected)
bidders. Another is to invest more in education (especially in Thailand
and Indonesia, where schools have failed to produce workers with the skills
their economies require). That goes for companies as well as governments.
Skewed incentives have encouraged Asian companies to invest in physical
assets such as property, rather than the human ones the region will need.
Get off those laurels
Some remarkable changes have indeed taken place, and it would be churlish to dismiss all of them as mere lip service to creditors’ demands. Yet some Asian politicians and businessmen see little need to press on with further reforms. To them, the purpose of the exercise was simply to win the confidence of foreigners, appease the IMF and attract investment back into the region. The speed with which Asia is recovering serves only to reinforce such attitudes. Moreover, as the immediate crisis passes, there will be less need for IMF money, eliminating another incentive to shape up. And, whereas many of the leaders that initiated reforms were new— in South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia, for example—those governments are now nearing the end of their honeymoons. As the crisis fades, the temptation to be nice to one’s cronies mounts. Politics still costs money.
Moreover, after two years of such agony, which politician would want to inflict further painful reform on his voters? Asia’s reformers, or their successors, may well conclude that, for the time being, enough is enough. After all, if they were to settle for a period of moderate growth instead of “extreme” reforms, it would hardly be a uniquely Asian approach.