No panacea for global economic crisis : President

Hua Hin (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said that there is no panacea that could be used to resolve instantly the impact of the current global financial crisis which has hit almost all parts of the world, including countries in South East Asia.

"With regard to regional cooperation to minimize the impact of the economic crisis, there is indeed no panacea or solution that could instantly resolve the problem. We all are aware of this. All advanced countries are affected. Their markets become gloomy. Our exports are therefore disrupted and a number of problems are now facing all nations, including ASEAN," the president told reporters after attending the 14th ASEAN summit in Hua Hin, Thailand, on Sunday.

The president said that all countries, including Indonesia, had done the best they could. Indonesia has done its best to contribute efforts to minimizing the impact of the financial crisis, both at regional level in ASEAN and at multilateral level in the G-20 forum.

"All countries wanted to do their best so that the global economic crisis would not worsen, instead the recession would eventually stop so that the world economy would revive," President Yudhoyono said.

However, all of the efforts are not without limitations so that regional and multilateral cooperations are being made, the president said.

In order to help cope with the financial crisis, Indonesia, he said, has proposed three levels of cooperation schemes in the G-20 forum in the United States last year.

"The three levels of cooperation schemes are cooperation in the multilateral level, cooperation in the regional level and cooperation in the national level," he said.

He said that at the regional level, Indonesia worked together with ASEAN to establish the Chiang Mai Initiative. "We hope the Chiang Mai initiative would be implemented soon."

ASEAN also agreed to increase intra-economic cooperation in the trade and investment fields and agreed not to adopt protectionism.

"The ASEAN nations are advised not to close themselves (against goods of other ASEAN members) which otherwise would worsen our respective economies," Yudhoyono said.

Indonesia in its capacity as chairman of the Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT GT) and the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippine East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP EAGA), has specifically proposed that sub-regional cooperations should provide stimuli packages for infrastructure development, he said.(*)

0 Response to "No panacea for global economic crisis : President"