While recent instability in Southeast Asian stock markets has been attributed to rising oil prices and declines on US economy, some analysts are pointing to more fundamental problems that could see a repeat of the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
However, the region successfully managed to escape the edge of crisis during the first half of 2008, although risky factors remain and pose danger to the future.
The soaring price of oil this year has held back Southeast Asia' s high-speed economy growth trend of last year. Especially, while Vietnam, the most potential developing power of the region, suffered a sudden economic slip earlier this year, other countries around had to take macro-regulation actions by various economic policies since the whole region shares an economy chain.
However, the prices of energy and foods which strike new records time and again since the beginning of 2008 still bring inflation to the ASEAN members, with a whole-year estimation of 5 percent of Malaysia, 6 percent of Singapore, 10 percent of Thailand, 11.2 percent of Indonesia, and more than 20 percent in Vietnam.
In the context of globalization, foreign investment and export also saw difficulties in these nations due to the unresponsive economy of the United States. Some countries which have conventional close trade relations with the United States and take foreign investment and export as their main driving forces for economic boom, such as Thailand and Singapore, suffered a lot from the subprime mortgage crisis. Following the weak trade, some currencies glided down, such as the Thai Baht and Philippine Peso.
While on the inner side of the region, Vietnam's sudden and spectacular economic meltdown – witnessed in a 26.8 percent inflation rate in June, a spiraling current account deficit, the world's worst-performing stock market so far this year, and most recently rumors that the government has requested an International Monetary Fund bailout package – is hard hitting the region's confidence, although the authorities in Hanoi said no such a financial crisis happened so far as rumors said.
Obviously, the slump of Vietnam's stock, property and currency markets caused tension among investors across Asia, who still have a fresh memory of the 1997-98 financial crisis. Though Hanoi moved quickly and "granted" its foreign exchange center a three-day holiday, it hasn't calmed market fears which actually are spreading to neighbors.
