July 3, 200719 yr MONEY and POWER in Southeast Asia - Bangkok Post "Between 40 and 50 families control the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Their interests include banking, property develop ment, shipping, sugar exports and running casinos. Thirteen of the 50 richest families in the world are in Southeast Asia and yet they are largely unknown outside confined business circles. Often this is because they not only control the press and television, but also almost everything else. How do they do it? What are their secrets? And is it good news or bad for the places where they operate? Joe Studwell explosively lifts the lid on a world of staggering secrecy and shows that the little most people know about them is also almost entirely wrong. Ten years ago, the Asian financial crisis caused hundreds of business corporations to go bankrupt, affecting most Asian countries. And the people believed to be most affected were the business tycoons dominating Southeast Asian economies. Instead, they are still as powerful as before. How and why is this? This is the most important of the three questions asked by Joe Studwell, editor of the China Economic Quarterly and a director of the Asian research firm Dragonomics. And the quest for answers to the three questions is the central task of his book Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, which was published by Profile Books Ltd and was launched in London yesterday. The two other questions are: Why have secretive tycoons come to rule the economies of Southeast Asia? And in what way have they contributed to the region's overall economic development? Mr Studwell interestingly points out in his book that the modern history of Southeast Asia is bound up with migrations of Europeans and Americans, Chinese, Indians, Sri Lankans, Jews and Armenians and more. However, at the economic level, the commercial pre-eminence in the region is dominated by Chinese." Full article: http://www.bangkokpost.net/News/03Jul2007_news32.php
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