The crisis started in 1997 due to the collapse of Thailand’s currency and quickly spread across the region and sent many countries, including South Korea and Indonesia, into a deep economic slump and sparked intense political upheaval.
It also helped trigger the Russian financial crisis in 1998, the subsequent collapse of United States-based hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management and the South American financial crisis in 1999.
The countries most hurt by the Asian crisis have been recovering by embracing the free market, globalisation and also by fixing structural issues that led to the crisis in the first place.
Factors including poor financial supervision, over-reliance on short-term foreign capital and loose lending policies have not troubled the region during the 2008 global financial crisis.
Asian governments have worked hard to reform their financial sectors, boost regulation and strengthen corporate governance.
Indeed, much of Asia has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. China in particular has catapulted itself onto the global stage, having become a member of the World Trade Organisation in December 2001.
Remarkably, within a decade, China has vaulted past Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Germany to become the world’s third biggest economy. It’s also tipped to overtake the US as the globe’s superpower by 2025.
Other Asian countries, including India and South Korea, have also jumped rankings.
As these economies have moved ahead in leaps and bounds during the past 10 years, they have had a dramatic effect on how Australia accrues its wealth.
China has soared from being Australia’s fourth-largest trading partner in 1999, to the biggest today, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics and UBS data.
Japan has dropped to second place during the past 10 years, while India and South Korea have overtaken the United States to become the third and fourth largest purchasers of Australian goods.
Since 2003, the S&P/ASX 200 Index experienced a double-digit jump led by the resources sector, in particular mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, which experienced massive demand for commodities from emerging markets, particularly China.
Although the boom was disrupted in 2008 due to the global financial crisis, share prices of firms such as BHP, Woodside Petroleum and Felix Resources have performed relatively well overall as commodities demand has held up from the likes of China.
This is proven by the fact Australia secured its biggest-ever resources deal – a $50 billion agreement earlier in the year to supply liquefied natural gas to China from the Gorgon development off Western Australia.
And this looks like a trend that is set to continue, according to Reserve Bank of Australia deputy governor Ric Battellino.
“China is our largest export market, and Australia is the largest supplier of bulk commodities to China, so our economies are becoming very intertwined,” Battellino told a Perth audience on 6 November.
A key theme to emerge from this is that Australia will most likely “face an extended period of prosperity in the years ahead” from strong real economic growth due to increased investment, higher exports and high commodity prices, he says.
It is also no secret China’s $673 billion stimulus package announced in November 2008 has helped shield Australia from recession.
What has also emerged in the past 10 years, particularly within the Australian financial planning industry, is the importance of allocating clients’ money to emerging markets as part of a diversified investment portfolio.
“If you look at China and India now, it’s amazing when you consider we’re in a global slowdown, but yet China is growing at 8 per cent and India 6 per cent. That tells you something about the growth prospects in these countries,” Templeton Asset Management executive chairman Mark Mobius told IFA in August.
Depending on their age, investors should be overweight in emerging markets, Mobius says.
“Well it depends on the age group. I mean if I was a young person I would probably put 50 per cent of my equity portion in emerging markets,” he says.
“As you get older you tend to be more cautious; you want to be closer to home. If you’re in Australia and you want to have more in Australia, you may want to reduce the emerging markets component to maybe 30 or 20 per cent, but I definitely think you should be overweight in emerging markets.”
Marc Faber Limited founder Marc Faber, who has the nickname Dr Doom due to his straightforward bearish views, also made quite a statement with his positive conviction on emerging markets.
“Statistically measured, if you really want to be in equities I would say that Asia offers you better growth opportunities and cheaper valuations than the US,” Faber says.
Interestingly, most emerging markets equities funds have entered the market during the past 10 years.
They include the Dimensional Emerging Markets Trust, GMO Emerging Markets Trust, Schroder Global Emerging Markets Fund, Aberdeen Emerging Opportunities Fund, Fidelity China Fund and Premium China Fund, Morningstar data shows.
Exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider iShares also made its debut in 2007, offering investors in Australia access to a range of ETFs, including those that track developing economies’ indexes such as the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 and the broader MSCI Emerging Markets.
The provider later expanded its basket of offerings by adding ETFs that track the S&P Asia 50 and MSCI BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) indexes.
While in the past decade emerging markets have clearly become more vital to Australia’s economy, it looks like in the foreseeable future, it will be a two-way street, with local investors finding it increasingly important to invest in emerging Asian economies given their strong fiscal position, continuing reforms and healthy surpluses.
The International Monetary Fund in its latest outlook projected gross domestic product of developing Asia to boom by 7.7 per cent in 2009 and 7.8 per cent in 2010.
That is far more appealing than the 1.3 per cent contraction forecast for deficit-mired advanced economies in 2009 and 1.7 per cent expansion in 2010. «
