SINGAPORE - ASIA'S economies, which have been hit hard by the economic crisis, could recover next year, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, but warned that the export-dependent continent could not pull through on its own.
Asia needed to boost household demand to reduce its traditional reliance on exports, but such a shift would not happen overnight, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told reporters on Tuesday in a webcast from Washington.
JAKARTA - WITH the economic crisis dampening the world's appetite for Asian exports, economists are urging the region dubbed the 'factory of the world' to rely less on foreign demand and buy more at home.
Asia's heavily export-driven economies have been hit hard by the crisis, which has led to consumers from the United States to Europe buying fewer Asian-made goods.
CANBERRA - AUSTRALIA'S leader unveiled a huge new stimulus package on Tuesday to try to shield the economy from the global downturn, promising A$42 billion (S$39.3 billion) in spending that will send the budget into the red for the first time in nearly a decade.
The package comes on top of one launched late last year worth A$10.4 billion and underscores the threat the downturn poses to Australia's resources-based economy, which has suffered a sharp turnaround since the worldwide financial turmoil began mid-last year.
WASHINGTON - SENATE Republicans circulated a sweeping plan to drive down the cost of mortgages by expanding the federal government's role in the industry, officials said on Monday night as debate opened on an economic stimulus bill at the top of President Barack Obama's agenda.
The emerging proposal also relies on a bigger and more widely available tax break for homebuyers than is now available, those officials added as Senate Republicans staked their claim to a different type of economic recovery measure than Democrats and the administration favour.
