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To: Alex who wrote (8133)	3/7/1998 4:16:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116764

The larger impact Euro to have, the more pressure is on Japanese to prop Asian cooperation and Yen...The weakness in Dollar, IMO may affect Japan more than even USA.. Separatly, China story continues... Asian Financial Crisis Looms Over China 07:47 a.m. Mar 07, 1998 Eastern By Benjamin Kang Lim BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Jiang Zemin has warned that the negative impact of the Asian financial crisis on China's economy should not be underestimated, the China Daily said Saturday. China has remained largely unscathed from the crisis, but the regional financial turmoil was expected to take its toll on the world's most populous nation this year. Central bank governor Dai Xianglong told a news conference Saturday the crisis would slow the growth of China's foreign exchange reserves, exports and use of foreign capital. Jiang, who also holds the top jobs in China's Communist Party and the military, told a parliamentary group discussion on Friday that the Asian financial crisis has ''lasted longer than expected,'' the newspaper said. ''China has not been seriously affected,'' Jiang said. ''But we should have a correct understanding of the situation. We should not underestimate its negative impact on our economy.'' ''We should see both its challenges for our economic development and opportunities it may bring us,'' the newspaper quoted Jiang as saying. He did not elaborate. ''We should be confident that we can fend off the crisis, consolidate the current good situation at home and seek further development as long as we follow the principles decided by the central authorities,'' Jiang said. Dai, governor of the People's Bank of China, said China's foreign exchange reserves would grow at a slower rate this year because of the crisis. China's reserves stood at $139.9 billion at the end of 1997, representing an increase of $34.9 billion on a year earlier. It was $140.3 billion at the end of February. Weaker currencies in Southeast Asia were expected to cut into China's exports and foreign investment, but Chinese leaders have pledged not to devalue the local currency. Dai said he was ''not overly optimistic'' about exports this year but that 8-10 percent growth was ''entirely achievable.'' China's exports grew a whopping 20.9 percent in 1997. The governor said China was expected to register a slight trade surplus or balanced foreign trade in 1998. China registered a surplus of $40.3 billion in 1997 on exports of $182.7 billion and imports of $142.4 billion. Dai said direct foreign investment (FDI) would fall but would be at least $30 billion. China's FDI rose 8.5 percent to $45.3 billion in 1997. Wary of social unrest, President Jiang said the government should look after workers laid off from ailing state-owned enterprises. Millions were expected to be out of a job after the Communist Party endorsed at a pivotal congress last September Jiang's bold plan to overhaul the lumbering state sector through mergers, stock sales and bankruptcies. Jiang called for re-employment programs to provide jobs for laid-off workers, the newspaper said. ''Re-employment programs have a direct bearing on the success or failure of state enterprise reform and must be put on the agenda of party committees and governments at all levels,'' Jiang said. ''Strenuous efforts should be made to develop collective, self-employed and private businesses and support medium and small enterprises so that they can provide more jobs,'' he said. Jiang cautioned against state enterprises laying off both husband and wife, the newspaper said. He said China's top priority was to boost the economy and ensure that development was fast and healthy, it said without giving further details. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

To: Alex who wrote (8133)	3/7/1998 4:29:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116764

Russia splits big power Contact Group over Kosovo 11:20 p.m. Mar 06, 1998 Eastern By Paul Taylor, Diplomatic Editor LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - Russia blasted a hole on Friday in efforts by major world powers to send a tough warning to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that a bloody crackdown in Kosovo must stop. Western governments have condemned a Serbian police offensive in which at least 50 ethnic Albanians have been killed in the last week, and voiced alarm at the risk of a new conflict spreading across the southern Balkans. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said he expected foreign ministers of the six-nation Contact Group to send a tough-minded message to Milosevic on ''the need for an immediate end to repressive action'' in the southern Serbian province when they meet in London on Monday. But Russia, the big power most sympathetic to the Serbs, said it would not tolerate what it called threats by Western states to intervene directly or impose new sanctions on Belgrade -- a clear reference to statements by the United States and Britain. ''We view as unacceptable statements by representatives of several Western countries about possible direct interference from outside and a shift in accent to various sanctions to influence Yugoslavia,'' a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. Moscow blamed ''terrorist acts carried out by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)'' but called for restraint on both sides. It said Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov would not attend the London talks but was sending his deputy Nikolai Afanasyenko instead. Analysts said the Russian attitude appeared to be a re-run of splits in the United Nations Security Council last month over Iraq. With Russia opposed to sanctions, Western officials said the Contact Group could do little more than focus on diplomatic ways of pressing Milosevic to talk to moderate leaders of the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo. ''The key thing is not to come in with all guns blazing but to try to find ways of persuading,'' a British official said. Milosevic rebuffed an appeal for restraint and political dialogue from Cook, representing the European Union's presidency, at a meeting in Belgrade on Thursday. The Yugoslav leader insisted that Kosovo, whose 90 percent ethnic Albanian population he stripped of autonomy in 1989, was an internal ''terrorism'' problem. Hammering home the snub, his security forces launched a fresh attack on suspected strongholds of the separatist KLA even as Cook was in Belgrade. The offensive continued on Friday with Serb sources reporting fierce resistance in the armed Albanian nationalists' mountain strongholds. ''Once again, Milosevic has called our bluff,'' said Terry Taylor, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Diplomats said ministers from the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy were likely to clash on the question of threatening tighter sanctions on rump Yugoslavia's crumbling economy at Monday's meeting. Any such decision would require a U.N. Security Council resolution, which Russia and China were most unlikely to accept. German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday calling for an emergency Security Council debate on Kosovo. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will be in London as part of a European tour designed originally to build support for military action against Iraq if it blocks U.N. arms inspectors again rather than to deal with another crisis in the Balkans. Washington has responded to the Kosovo crackdown by rescinding some minor economic concessions it gave Milosevic only last week to reward his co-operative behaviour in Bosnia and reviving a threat of military action made by president George Bush in 1992. Independent analysts said direct Western military intervention in Kosovo was a non-starter, and any military deployment would almost certainly be limited to sending forces to neighbouring Macedonia and possibly Albania to try to prevent the conflict spreading. ''The military option they have is reinforcing Macedonia, which could be done easily and would send a signal to Belgrade,'' the IISS's Taylor said. The United Nations already has a small peacekeeping force -- including several hundred Americans -- in Macedonia. Its mandate is due to expire in August because of Russia's refusal to extend it. Officials said Western powers would press Moscow to reconsider that position. Some critics said remarks by U.S. special envoy Robert Gelbard in Belgrade on February 23, praising Milosevic's ''significant positive influence'' recently in Bosnia and branding the KLA ''a terrorist group,'' may have sent the wrong signal to the Yugoslav leader. ''Milosevic may have misread things and interpreted that as a green light,'' said Michael Williams, an analyst and ex-U.N. official in former Yugoslavia. ^REUTERS@