South East Asian finance ministers met with investors in Dubai today in efforts to attract investments from the Gulf states into their agriculture and tourism sectors. Although investors are growing wary of investments in emerging markets amid the tumbling financial markets in Asia, finance ministers of the 10 member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) emphasised that the banking industry was safe and reforms were in place since the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
"The banking and financial systems of [the] Asean countries are not facing a crisis of systemic confidence," said Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the Singaporean minister of finance. "Like everyone else, we are affected by the global financial earthquake, but fault lines are not present in Asia; in particular there are no fault lines in the Asean banking and financial systems. " When asked why they were trying to encourage investments from the Gulf, the finance ministers said joint projects had been in the works for at least a year.
The finance ministers believe Asean economies are fit to weather the financial crisis and plan to forge ahead with infrastructure projects in collaboration with Gulf investors. shamdan@thenational.ae