Mr. David Burton

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  Published on: 4/8/2008    Last Visited: 5/18/2008  

  David Burton, the head of the IMF Asia department believes that a faster

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  Published on: 10/17/2008    Last Visited: 10/17/2008  

  The International Monetary Fund's Asia-Pacific director David Burton told AFP Thursday he thought Asian nations should consider guaranteeing bank deposits as a defensive option.
  
  Many countries in Europe, as well as others such as Australia and New Zealand, have guaranteed all deposits which encourages an inflow of cash from risk-averse savers, threatening financial stability, he explained.

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  Published on: 10/20/2007    Last Visited: 10/20/2007  

  "One can be optimistic about China and India," representing as they do "remarkable success stories," said David Burton, Director of IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, Friday at a briefing on IMF Asia and Pacific Regional Economic Outlook.
  
  Noting that increase in India's growth to high levels is more recent than China's, but nonetheless impressive, he said India faces a number of challenges including a high public debt and some inflation pressures, although the authorities taken steps to tighten monetary policy and those appear to have been reasonably effective so far.
  
  China and India are so crucial to driving economic growth at the moment as they're both large economies and they're both growing very fast, Burton said, noting that "India, too, though it's historically been more closed than China, has been opening up."
  
  And India is having a greater impact than it used to through trade channels, although it remains somewhat less open than China.There's a range of structural reforms that India needs to undertake to further deregulate and open its economy so that it can have more broad-based growth, he added.
  
  It needs to do so particularly in the manufacturing sector to drive growth and to drive the employment creation that it will need, particularly with its relatively young population and the need to provide jobs for new entrants to the labour force, Burton suggested.
  
  With consultations about to begin on India, its exchange rate policy along with many other policies, including in the financial sector will be an important focus, as it is with all countries, he said.
  ...
  Noting that not only in China and India, but in Asia generally, inequality has been rising, Burton said there is a range of policies that can be implemented to help ensure that the benefits of growth are more evenly spread.
  
  "But it's certainly true that they (the benefits) haven't been evenly spread in recent years, and that it's an important issue that the region needs to worry about."
  
  Asked if there was a general apprehension that some provinces may be left behind with the "runaway economic growth in India and China", Burton said: "It is important to make sure that that doesn't happen."
  
  In India, for example, states have some autonomy in the policies that they follow, and it's up to individual states too to make sure that they follow policies that are conducive to growth and that they don't get left behind, he noted.
  
  In the case of China a major challenge is to rebalance economic growth, Burton said, pointing out that right now China is very heavily dependent on both net exports and investment.
  
  With China becoming a very open economy on the trade side, it's very much engaged with the rest of the world and the rest of the region."And that means that its economic performance has an important impact on global economic growth," he said.
  ...
  "Our latest forecast is for growth in Asia as a whole to decline from about 8% this year to 7.2% next year, and in emerging Asia from about 9.5% to 8.5% -- as external demand, especially from the United States and Europe, slows," Burton said.
  
  The sub-prime crisis, however, has increased uncertainty about the outlook for the global economy and for emerging Asia in particular.A further bout of global financial volatility could have significant spillovers on the region, including a potential reversal of capital inflows.
  
  The main risk, though, is of a sharper slowdown in the United States and other advanced economies than in the baseline scenario, and correspondingly slower export demand growth for Asia.
  
  There are also possibilities on the upside, though, mainly in China and India, where investment could be stronger than currently envisaged, Burton said.

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  David Burto, Director of the Asia and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund

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  Published on: 4/29/2008    Last Visited: 5/1/2008  

  Departing will be Mark Allen, director of the Policy Development and Review Department; Shailendra Anjaria, the IMF secretary; David Burton, director of the Asia and Pacific Department; Bert Keuppens, director of the Office of Internal Audit; Mohsin Khan, director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department; and Michael Kuhn, director of the Finance Department.

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  Published on: 6/6/2007    Last Visited: 6/9/2007  

  Domestically, China needs to allow greater exchange-rate flexibility to curb rapid credit growth and excessive investment, said David Burton, director of the IMF Asia and Pacific Department.And China's inflexibility in its yuan currency constrains other countries in the region, he said in a text prepared for delivery at the Singapore Press Club."The still limited flexibility in China makes it more difficult for other countries to allow their exchange rates to strengthen.And this has been reflected in continued substantial reserve buildups in some cases," he said."This can be both expensive, and also create difficulties for monetary management," he added. Burton said that China, like other Asian countries, continues to rely heavily on net exports as an engine of economic growth. While investment has grown rapidly in China, savings, particularly in the corporate sector, have grown even faster, he noted, leading to inadequate consumption that is threatening China's economic expansion."The need in China, therefore, is to reduce reliance on rapid investment growth as well as net exports, and to encourage consumption," he said. "Greater exchange rate flexibility is also needed to give monetary policy scope to reign in rapid credit growth and constrain excessive investment." Burton said the reforms to strengthen social safety nets, reorient public spending toward social areas, and improve financial intermediation were "urgently needed to help strengthen consumption." Looking back to the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago, "almost to the day," Burton recalled that the central feature was a sudden reversal of investor sentiment and international capital flows. However, he said, the roots of the crisis mainly were in financial and corporate sector weaknesses not fully apparent at the time."Ten years on, Asia is again the most dynamic region in the global economy.Rather than withdraw from globalization, Asia has continued to embrace it," he said.He cited a wide range of reforms undertaken, from more flexible exchange-rates regimes in many countries to a buildup of substantial official reserves and inflation targeting.

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  Published on: 10/18/2008    Last Visited: 10/18/2008  

  "I think Asia needs to think seriously about it (guaranteeing deposits)," David Burton, IMF's Asia-Pacific director, said in an interview at his Washington office on Thursday. "It is not necessarily a ‘one size fits all' policy but it is something that countries in the region need to consider, and I'm sure are considering," he said. Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand in recent days moved to guarantee all bank deposits while Japan said it would consider extending a government-backed scheme that guarantees deposits of up to $100,000. Burton said that guarantees in the US and Europe raised a critical question for Asia of whether it could suffer a shift of deposits from its banks, if it did not have a blanket guarantee, to those somewhere else that did. There was, therefore, a need for "a defensive measure," he said. "In a time when there is a lot of uncertainty, investor risk aversion is very high, there is lot of nervousness, there are possibilities to have contagion to banking systems anywhere," he warned. Burton cited as an example the run last month on Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia after rumours about its stability, with savers clashing with police as they tried to withdraw their funds. Unlike bankruptcy and other problems afflicting the banking system in Europe and the US, Asian banks were generally "well capitalized and pretty liquid" with relatively limited reliance on foreign wholesale funding, he said. Asian economies, which faced a major financial crisis in 1997-98, now enjoy relatively high growth rates and have plentiful foreign exchange reserves with low fiscal deficits and debt levels, making them well placed to weather the current global financial turmoil, he said. Asked what was his greatest fear for Asia during the current global turmoil, Burton said that it was the prospect of a "confidence crisis." "These financial crises have a way of moving very fast and you have a sudden shift in confidence and funding starts to become more difficult that feeds on the confidence," he said. "Asia's well placed but when confidence is shaking globally, you have to be on the alert because very unpredictable things can happen and suddenly even though economic fundamentals may be solid." "It's just the risk that sort of thing can get out of control." The current global financial maelstrom has already sparked capital outflows from equity and bond markets in Asia, causing downward pressure on exchange rates and US dollar funding, Burton said. It is also beginning to dampen economic growth rates amid declining exports to Europe and the US. On whether Asia will plunge into a recession, Burton replied: "You are going to see a substantial slowdown in Asian growth." He said that China and India would remain growth powerhouses despite the turmoil, while Japan would remain a source of stability for the global financial system with its restructured banking sector. Burton also said that the IMF would not hesitate to bail out Asian economies if they needed it â€" unlike the financial crisis a decade ago when the Fund imposed many conditions on its help. "We have a mechanism to provide financing very quickly and we stand ready to do that and in large amounts and with light conditionality," he said. "It would be a very different situation from the old Asia crisis where there was a lot of conditionality," he said.
  ...
  "I think Asia needs to think seriously about it (guaranteeing deposits)," David Burton, IMF's Asia-Pacific director, said in an interview at his Washington office on Thursday. "It is not necessarily a ‘one size fits all' policy but it is something that countries in the region need to consider, and I'm sure are considering," he said. Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand in recent days moved to guarantee all bank deposits while Japan said it would consider extending a government-backed scheme that guarantees deposits of up to $100,000. Burton said that guarantees in the US and Europe raised a critical question for Asia of whether it could suffer a shift of deposits from its banks, if it did not have a blanket guarantee, to those somewhere else that did. There was, therefore, a need for "a defensive measure," he said. "In a time when there is a lot of uncertainty, investor risk aversion is very high, there is lot of nervousness, there are possibilities to have contagion to banking systems anywhere," he warned. Burton cited as an example the run last month on Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia after rumours about its stability, with savers clashing with police as they tried to withdraw their funds. Unlike bankruptcy and other problems afflicting the banking system in Europe and the US, Asian banks were generally "well capitalized and pretty liquid" with relatively limited reliance on foreign wholesale funding, he said. Asian economies, which faced a major financial crisis in 1997-98, now enjoy relatively high growth rates and have plentiful foreign exchange reserves with low fiscal deficits and debt levels, making them well placed to weather the current global financial turmoil, he said. Asked what was his greatest fear for Asia during the current global turmoil, Burton said that it was the prospect of a "confidence crisis." "These financial crises have a way of moving very fast and you have a sudden shift in confidence and funding starts to become more difficult that feeds on the confidence," he said. "Asia's well placed but when confidence is shaking globally, you have to be on the alert because very unpredictable things can happen and suddenly even though economic fundamentals may be solid." "It's just the risk that sort of thing can get out of control." The current global financial maelstrom has already sparked capital outflows from equity and bond markets in Asia, causing downward pressure on exchange rates and US dollar funding, Burton said. It is also beginning to dampen economic growth rates amid declining exports to Europe and the US. On whether Asia will plunge into a recession, Burton replied: "You are going to see a substantial slowdown in Asian growth." He said that China and India would remain growth powerhouses despite the turmoil, while Japan would remain a source of stability for the global financial system with its restructured banking sector. Burton also said that the IMF would not hesitate to bail out Asian economies if they needed it â€" unlike the financial crisis a decade ago when the Fund imposed many conditions on its help. "We have a mechanism to provide financing very quickly and we stand ready to do that and in large amounts and with light conditionality," he said. "It would be a very different situation from the old Asia crisis where there was a lot of conditionality," he said.

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  Published on: 9/1/2008    Last Visited: 11/29/2008  

  David Burton, the head of the IMF's Asia-Pacific department, said that despite China's own economic slowdown, the country had many ways to shore up its economic growth. Mr Burton said China's export-driven economy had been dragged down by dwindling demand from the United States and Europe, and it could even miss the IMF's forecast of 9.3 per cent growth next year. But the country was still sitting on almost US$2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and had a relatively strong financial system.
  
  "The global economy is slowing sharply and [the mainland] and Hong Kong are going to be significantly affected," Mr Burton told the South China Morning Post before meeting Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen yesterday. "With its robust reserves, I have no major worries about China, which will be a source of stability for the globe for the next year or two." He said both the mainland and Hong Kong would be well positioned to get through the crisis.

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  www.thechinanews.net/story/292441 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 10/20/2007    Last Visited: 10/20/2007  

  'One can be optimistic about China and India,' representing as they do 'remarkable success stories,' said David Burton, Director of IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, Friday at a briefing on IMF Asia and Pacific Regional Economic Outlook.
  
  Noting that increase in India's growth to high levels is more recent than China's, but nonetheless impressive, he said India faces a number of challenges including a high public debt and some inflation pressures, although the authorities taken steps to tighten monetary policy and those appear to have been reasonably effective so far.
  
  China and India are so crucial to driving economic growth at the moment as they're both large economies and they're both growing very fast, Burton said, noting that 'India, too, though it's historically been more closed than China, has been opening up.'
  
  And India is having a greater impact than it used to through trade channels, although it remains somewhat less open than China.There's a range of structural reforms that India needs to undertake to further deregulate and open its economy so that it can have more broad-based growth, he added.
  
  It needs to do so particularly in the manufacturing sector to drive growth and to drive the employment creation that it will need, particularly with its relatively young population and the need to provide jobs for new entrants to the labour force, Burton suggested.
  
  With consultations about to begin on India, its exchange rate policy along with many other policies, including in the financial sector will be an important focus, as it is with all countries, he said.
  ...
  Noting that not only in China and India, but in Asia generally, inequality has been rising, Burton said there is a range of policies that can be implemented to help ensure that the benefits of growth are more evenly spread.
  
  'But it's certainly true that they (the benefits) haven't been evenly spread in recent years, and that it's an important issue that the region needs to worry about.'
  
  Asked if there was a general apprehension that some provinces may be left behind with the 'runaway economic growth in India and China', Burton said: 'It is important to make sure that that doesn't happen'.
  
  In India, for example, states have some autonomy in the policies that they follow, and it's up to individual states too to make sure that they follow policies that are conducive to growth and that they don't get left behind, he noted.
  
  In the case of China a major challenge is to rebalance economic growth, Burton said, pointing out that right now China is very heavily dependent on both net exports and investment.
  
  With China becoming a very open economy on the trade side, it's very much engaged with the rest of the world and the rest of the region. 'And that means that its economic performance has an important impact on global economic growth,' he said.
  
  The IMF regional outlook sees developments in Asia as generally positive this year.Growth has continued to accelerate, led by China and India, while domestic demand has played an increasing role in some economies, particularly the Newly Industrial Economies and the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
  
  Asia was not at the epicentre of the recent global financial market turmoil and markets and financial institutions in the region have generally held up well as direct exposure to the US sub-prime mortgages and, more broadly, to leveraged and complex structured credit products appears to be small, including for hedge funds in the region.
  
  The outlook is for growth to moderate during the remainder of 2007 and 2008. 'Our latest forecast is for growth in Asia as a whole to decline from about eight percent this year to 7.2 percent next year, and in emerging Asia from about 9.5 percent to 8.5 percent -- as external demand, especially from the United States and Europe, slows,' Burton said.
  
  The sub-prime crisis, however, has increased uncertainty about the outlook for the global economy and for emerging Asia in particular.A further bout of global financial volatility could have significant spillovers on the region, including a potential reversal of capital inflows.
  
  The main risk, though, is of a sharper slowdown in the United States and other advanced economies than in the baseline scenario, and correspondingly slower export demand growth for Asia.
  
  There are also possibilities on the upside, though, mainly in China and India, where investment could be stronger than currently envisaged, Burton said.
  
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  Mark Weisbrot spoke on a panel with David Burton, Director of the Asia and Pacific Department, IMF and Robert Wade, Professor of Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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