Shoppers browse through items on sale at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last Saturday.

Asian governments need to roll out fresh stimulus measures to stop their economies from sinking further as the region reels from collapsing exports, regional analysts said.

That total overshadows the $787- billion stimulus bill that US President Barack Obama signed last month in a bid to rebuild the world’s biggest economy amid its worst crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Other than spending massive amounts to pump-prime economies, there is little else Asia can do in the short term, Jan Lambregts, the Hong Kong-based head of regional research with Rabobank, told AFP.

“There is no place to hide for Asia in a global recession,” said Lambregts.

“There is a role for the government to act as a spender of last resort, so to speak, to soften the blow,” he said. “We are in a recession and this is about limiting the pain and making sure it does not spin out of control.”

Unlike in 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, the region now has the “financial muscle” to fund government spending initiatives, he said.

Asia’s much vaunted export engine has virtually ground to a crawl as US and European consumers cut back on consumption.

The current gloom engulfing Japan, the world’s number two economy, is also overshadowing its smaller but equally export-reliant neighbors.

Japan’s exports almost halved in January from a year ago while factory production fell by a record 10 percent. Business investment chalked up its biggest decline of 17.3 percent in the final quarter of last year.

There are plans for a third stimulus package of at least $200 billion to rescue the Japanese economy on top of two spending programs worth over $500 billion announced late last year, local reports and officials said.

Rising giant China’s top planner said the country stood ready to expand on the $585 billion plan that was announced in November should the economy need further bolstering from the global downturn.

“Whether we want to increase investment, the decision will be based on the development of the situation,” Zhang Ping, head of the National Development Reform Commission, said Friday.

Other export-driven countries like South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia have unveiled spending measures and more should be on the way given the seriousness of the situation, said Dariusz Kowalczyk of financial trading firm SJS Seymour.

“I think the governments in Asia are surprised by the severity of the [global] recession and are realizing that demand is incapable of recovering on its own,” said the Hong Kong-based chief investment strategist.

Malaysia is considering a spending plan worth $2.69 billion on top of an earlier package worth almost $2 billion announced in November.

In neighboring Singapore, the government tapped its vast financial reserves to help fund a stimulus package of more than $13 billion.

Source: AFP