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Economy
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2000-10-31 22:34:00-05
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Economic Freedom Report: Asia has the best and the worst
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Hong Kong, Thailand shine, Malaysia stinks; Laos Vietnam, North Korea even worse: WSJ and Heritage think tank report
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Describing the region as 'schizophrenic,' an economic freedom report on the degree of government intervention in the economy has been issued by the Wall Street Journal and the US conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Asian nations occupied all quadrants of the spectrum it seems. The 1997 financial crisis appears to have been a litmus test of the Asian governments in terms of how they responded to it. Before the crisis everything was hunky-dory and the various Asian nations were unified by their success. After the crisis hit, there were distinct nationalistic responses to it. In the survey, Hong Kong came out in first place, followed by Singapore in second, New Zealand in fourth and Australia ninth. However, Laos ranked 150th with Vietnam and Myanmar in 144 and 145 places and the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan placed 149 and 148, respectively. Rounding out the bottom was North Korea at 155. Adjacent countries, Thailand and Malaysia, showed two distinctly different patterns in responding to the crisis. Thailand was highly praised in the report as its rating rose from 46th to 27th as it liberalized its economy. Malaysia, however, adopted tight government controls and in so doing, scared off investors. The report vilified Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for adopting policies that insured his personal political survival at the long-term expense of the country.
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