ASIA HAS FORESEEABLE FUTURE, SAYS MALAYSIAN PM

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 11 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Najib Razak described Asia
as the foreseeable future while not dismissing the importance of United States
and Europe.

He said consumer spending in both Europe and the United States would,
however, not be at the level it was before.

"The foreseeable future will come from basically Asia. This is not to say
that America or Europe is not important, but from where they have come from, and
have been before, in terms of the ability of consumer spending, I think the next
few years will not see that happening at the level they were doing for a long,
long time," he said.

Najib, who is also Finance Minister, said the notion that Asia would recover
from the recession and resume exports to the US market would not be possible
anymore.

The Malaysian Prime Minister was interviewed on CNN's International business
segment,"Road to Recovery" which had also featured US economist and Nobel
Prize winner Paul Krugman.

Krugman commented on the programme that the world could not count on
China for economic relief as yet, although it was among the few countries still
growing, albeit at a slower pace.

"Although China is enormous and the economy of the future, it is not yet the
economy of the present. China is still substantially smaller than Europe or the
United States and did not have as much purchasing power as Japan has,"
he added.

Krugman said China was not big enough a player to be the world's locomotive
although it has been pushing along a bigger stimuli.
-- Bernama