To: Rarebird who wrote (26165 ) 12/5/1997 3:17:00 PM From: BillyG Respond to of 50808
Treasury Secretary Rubin on China.......... Business Week, December 8, 1997
December 8, 1997
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEK INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS; Asian Cover Story: THE ASIAN
CRISIS; Number 3556; Pg. 29
LENGTH: 705 words
HEADLINE: THERE'S NO REASON WHY WE CAN'T WORK OUR WAY THROUGH THIS'
HIGHLIGHT:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin talks about Asia
BODY:
He looks weary from dealing with Asia's financial woes, but U.S. Treasury
Secretary Robert E. Rubin sounds confident about the outlook for stanching the
crisis. In a Nov. 25 interview with BUSINESS WEEK Washington Senior News Editor
Owen Ullmann and Economics Correspondent Mike McNamee, Rubin said Asia seems to
be coming to grips with the need for economic reform. And he predicted that the
crisis won't infect the healthy U.S. economy. Key excerpts:
Q: Was the U.S. slow to recognize the magnitude of the problems in Asia? A: No.
We have been ahead of the curve from the beginning. We were focused on Thailand long before there was general recognition of its problems. We played a
very constructive role.
Q: The U.S. has been criticized for its reluctance to provide aid of its own.
What should the U.S. role be? A: It's a case-by-case situation. In Thailand, the
IMF [International Monetary Fund] package was sufficient, and there wasn't yet
the atmosphere of contagion that developed by the time we got to Indonesia. So I
think we did exactly the right thing.
Q: How is the U.S. leading now? A: We have people in Indonesia. The Manila
program [a new IMF fund] was framed by a letter [Federal Reserve Chairman] Alan
Greenspan and I sent that reflected the importance of having a sound approach to
dealing with the problems of the region.
Q: Do you see signs that the contagion is still raging? When does it end? A:
It's very hard to judge. I think what's not hard to judge is what is the right
thing to do. That is for each of these countries to implement policies that will
put them on a sound footing. There's a very healthy recognition that the path
out of this is for countries to implement sound policies and to stick with them.
The sooner that happens, the sooner we'll get through this period.
Q: Is China possibly next? A: Um. Well, I think I'm not going to get involved in individual countries. But I think it's worth noting that the Chinese
government has set forth an ambitious and market-oriented program for their
economy.
Q: How threatened is the world financial system by what's happening in Asia? A:
There's no reason why we can't work our way through this.
Q: Is Asia facing a liquidity squeeze or a structural crisis? A: At heart these
are structural and macroeconomic issues. Those are the issues that South Korea
needs to focus on.
Q: Does the IMF have sufficient resources to handle these problems? A: The
resources exist to deal with the issues we face, assuming that countries do what
they need to do. If they reestablish credibility and confidence, then capital
will begin flowing again.
Q: You recently wrote a letter to your Japanese counterpart, Finance Minister
Hiroshi Mitsuzuka. What did you say? A: I discussed the importance of domestic
demand-led growth, not having sustained trade imbalances, and getting ahead of
the curve with respect to financial-sector problems.
Q: Japan's 10th-largest bank and fourth-largest brokerage have failed, with more failures expected. How should Tokyo deal with its financial woes? A: They
should learn from mistakes we made. If you go back to the [U.S.] savings and
loan crisis, we didn't get ahead of the curve. As a result, it was much more
expensive. The lesson is: When there are problems, deal with them quickly.
Q: How sick are Japan's banks? A: I don't think it's for me to speculate. The
key is for them to take appropriate measures quickly.
Q: Some Wall Street traders fear Japanese banks will dump Treasuries, sending
U.S. interest rates soaring. How likely is that possibility? A: It's certainly
not the way I look at it. There may be people who need liquidity. There also may
be others who want to reallocate funds more toward what they think the safest
places may be. So long as our fundamentals and our policies are in good shape,
I'm not concerned about our bond market. Also, the federal government's net
financing requirements are going down enormously.
Q: How will the problems in Asia affect the U.S. economy? A: I don't think
anything that has happened so far would change my view that the most likely
scenario is solid growth and continued low inflation.