Already, some who have the cash flow are using the overall payments freeze as an excuse to avoid their creditors. But the hardest decisions may be those still to be made by individual companies and governments. With the glow of a new dawn just beyond the horizon, some politicians and business chiefs who have survived so far are thinking they may not need to change their ways after all. They are wrong. Unproductive capacity must still be shut down.
Opaque books have to be made much more transparent.
Convoluted lines of ownership must be clarified. And foreign investment and managerial input has to be accepted. The old ways made Asia vulnerable to the devastation of the Crisis. An impending end to the Crisis is no reason to go back to bad old ways. The upcoming summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will be a good chance for Asian nations and their key trading partners to strike a consensus on the way forward.