Kuwait, Philippines sign deal to regulate domestic labour

Yahoo – AFP, May 11, 2018

Filipino workers arrive to Manila International Airport from Kuwait on February 18,
2018, after the murder of a Philippine maid sent hundreds of women streaming
back home (AFP Photo/NOEL CELIS)

Kuwait City (AFP) - Kuwait and the Philippines signed a deal on Friday to regulate domestic workers, after a dispute between the two countries led to a ban on Filipino workers in the Gulf state.

"A short time ago we signed an agreement between the two countries on the employment of domestic workers," Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled al-Sabah told a joint press conference with his Filipino counterpart Alan Peter Cayetano.

In February Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte imposed a partial ban on workers travelling to Kuwait after a Filipina maid was murdered and her body found in a freezer.

The crisis deepened after Kuwaiti authorities in April expelled Manila's ambassador over video footage of Philippine embassy staff helping workers escape employers accused of mistreatment.

Cayetano said a new ambassador to Kuwait would soon be appointed and that he would advise Duterte to "immediately" lift the ban.

"I think the crisis is over. We will move on with the bilateral relations and we will resume normal ties with Kuwait," said an official with Cayetano's delegation.

He added that the agreement "gives a number of rights to Philippine workers".

A copy of the agreement seen by AFP says that workers will be allowed to keep their passports and cellphones -- often confiscated by employers.

It stipulates that contract renewals should be approved by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, instead of being automatically renewed.

Employers must provide domestic workers with food, housing, clothing and health insurance, according to the document.

About 262,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, 60 percent of them in domestic labour, according to Manila.

More than two million Filipinos are employed across the Gulf.

Rights groups have repeatedly urged Gulf states to reform their labour laws to cover domestic workers and provide them with "equal protections" available to other workers.

Bangladesh heist exposes Philippine dirty money secrets

Yahoo – AFP, Karl Malakunas, 20 March 2016

The $81 million stolen from the Bangladesh central bank's American accounts

 last month was immediately sent via electronic transfer to the Philippines' 

RCBC bank (AFP Photo/Noel Celis)

When mystery hackers launched a stunning raid on Bangladesh's foreign reserves, a plot worthy of a John le Carre spy novel was sparked in the Philippines, exposing the Southeast Asian nation as a dirty money haven.

The $81 million stolen from the Bangladesh central bank's American accounts last month was immediately sent via electronic transfer to the Philippines' RCBC bank, with the thieves deliberately targeting their laundering location.

Maia Deguito, manager of the
RCBC branch in Manila's financial
district, attends a senate hearing
in Manila on March 17, 2016
(AFP Photo/Ted Aljibe)

The Philippines has some of the world's strictest bank secrecy laws to protect account holders, while its casinos are exempt from rules altogether aimed at preventing money laundering.

"The Philippines is very attractive (for dirty money) because our laws have gaping holes. It's easy to launder money here," Senator Sergio Osmena, who is pushing for stronger anti-money laundering laws, told AFP.

Still, if the thieves were to get away with their audacious heist, the money had to be moved quickly through the banking system and into the casinos.

And it did.

Authorities took four days to order a recall of the money.

But by then it had vanished -- leaving in its place a tale of death threats, bribes, shady business figures and a bank manager who could be the villain or a victim.

"I did not do anything wrong. If this is a nightmare, I want to wake up now," the manager of RCBC bank, Maia Deguito, told ABS-CBN television this week after authorities stopped her at Manila airport from trying to leave the country.

"I live everyday in fear."

Lorenzo Tan, RCBC president and chief executive

 officer, gives a statement during a senate hearing

in Manila on March 15, 2016 (AFP Photo/Noel Celis)

With authorities in Bangladesh and elsewhere bamboozled over who masterminded the cyber-heist, Deguito's role as manager of the bank that accepted and shifted the money has come under intense scrutiny.

She has accused the bank's president, Lorenzo Tan, of ordering her to move the money. He has fiercely denied the accusations.

Philippine senators who launched an inquiry this week into the affair are yet to determine whether she was a scapegoat or not, but are convinced she was not the mastermind.

"It's a big operation. This could not have been done out of the Philippines alone," Senator Ralph Recto said.

The Senate inquiry and another probe by the Philippines' Anti-Money Laundering Council have hit several major hurdles, including a security camera at the bank not working when the money was shifted.

Accusations and counter-accusations between Deguito and RCBC management have further confused investigators.

'Money trail'

A final roadblock has emerged at the casinos, with the money apparently vanishing in mountains of gambling chips and mysterious middlemen.

Julia Abad (R), deputy director of the anti-money laundering council, speaks

at a senate hearing in Manila on March 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/Ted Aljibe)

"Our money trail ended at the casinos," Julia Abad, deputy director of the anti-money laundering council, told senators Tuesday.

On February 5, the same day Bangladesh Bank was hacked, the money was sent electronically to four accounts in Deguito's RCBC branch in the financial capital of Makati, according to testimony to the Senate inquiry.

Those accounts appeared to have been set up solely for that purpose because they were done using aliases, the Senate inquiry heard.

After that, the bulk of the money was transferred into accounts of a local ethnic Chinese businessmen, William Go, who has since protested his innocence. He said his signature was forged to set up the accounts.

From there, the money was briefly held by Philrem, a foreign exchange brokerage.

Philrem President Salud Bautista told the Senate inquiry $30 million went to a man named Weikang Xu.

Maia Deguito, manager of the
RCBC branch in Manila's financial
district, confers with one of her
lawyers during a senate hearing
in Manila on March 17, 2016
(AFP Photo/Ted Aljibe)

He was described as a casino junket operator but senators have said they know little more about him other than he is of Chinese origin.

The anti-money laundering council said another $29 million ended up in Solaire, a casino on a glittering Manila bayside strip that the Philippines hopes will become one of the world's biggest gambling destinations.

That money was exchanged into chips but could only be turned back into cash after being played in the casino, its management told the Senate inquiry.

Another $21 million was sent to Eastern Hawaii Leisure, which runs a sparsely furnished casino with Chinese-only television in Santa Ana, a sleepy town in the far northern Philippines, according to the council.

Senator Osmena said the case was likely just the tip of the iceberg.

"This could have happened hundreds of times already," he said.

"We discovered this one only because someone complained. But normally, if a drug dealer from Burma (Myanmar) or China would send money here, no one would complain."

Higher wages in store for foreign caregivers in Taiwan

Want China Times, CNA 2015-08-30

Foreign caregivers at a park in Taipei, March 30. (Photo/Fang Chun-che)

Foreign caregivers planning to work in Taiwan will receive a monthly wage of NT$17,000 (US$525) beginning on Sept. 1, the country's labor minister Chen Hsiung-wen announced on Friday.

That represents an increase of NT$1,160 (US$35), or 7.32%, from the current monthly wage of NT$15,840 (US$490), which has been the fixed rate for the past 18 years.

In contrast to the minimum monthly wage of NT$20,008 (US$617.34) for workers in Taiwan, which has increased 26% during the period, Chen said the 7.32% raise was reasonable.

Foreign nationals working as domestic caregivers in Taiwan are not covered under Taiwan's Labor Standards Act and therefore not entitled to the statutory minimum wage.

The higher monthly wage will only be applied, however, to new applicants from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and not to those already working in Taiwan.

With the monthly pay for migrant domestic helpers in Hong Kong and Macau at NT$16,530 (US$510), Taiwan hopes that the wage increase can attract quality domestic helpers to work in the country, Chen said, after a meeting with officials from the four Southeast Asian countries earlier in the day.

Indonesia and the Philippines, the two countries that provide the most migrant domestic helpers in Taiwan, have pressed Taiwan for months to increase the wages for their workers to NT$17,500 (US$540) per month, and have been holding back new workers from employers unwilling to pay that amount.

It was not immediately clear if the new wage settled the differences between Taiwan and the two countries.

But Agusdin Subiantoro, deputy director of Indonesia's National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, told CNA on Thursday that Indonesia and Taiwan had reached the agreement to increase migrant caregivers' pay to NT$17,000 (US$525) after rounds of negotiations.

Groups of manpower brokers called for the ministry on Friday afternoon to require incoming migrant workers to have HIV/AIDS testing and pregnancy tests done.

But the Labor Ministry said that considering international human rights conventions and workplace gender equality, those tests should not be requirements for those workers.

Related Article:

Indonesia Proposes 50% Salary Hike for Migrant Maids in Malaysia

Hong Kong's domestic workers 'treated worse than the dogs'

Many of the hundreds of thousands of migrant domestic workers looking for a better life in Hong Kong end up exposed to abuse at the hands of their employers. Zigor Aldama reports with three women's stories.

Deutsche Welle, 8 Mar 2015

Kamsiah (pictured above) was one of the 334,000 foreign domestic workers registered in Hong Kong. She is also one of the many who have suffered abuses at work. At 41, she left her hometown in Indonesia to work her way to a better life. However, she found herself in a nightmare.

"This is the second time I have worked in Hong Kong, and with my previous employers I had no problems," she said. "But this family treated me worse than their five dogs."

Kamsiah said she had to sleep with the animals and was barely fed with a daily bowl of rice with some vegetables. The pets, however, received all kinds of care from five o'clock in the morning.

"I had to get up at that hour to walk them," she said. "Then I would prepare breakfast, clean the house, do laundry, make lunch, do shopping, hang and iron the clothes, cook dinner, and then the lady would ask me to give her massages until the wee hours of the morning."

No money, no passport, no options

All that for a meager HK$3,920 ($500, 466 euros) a month, from which she had to foot the HK$2,543 fee the agency charged her during her first six months on the job.

Without passports or money, there are few places foreign workers
can go to escape abusive employers

"I escaped because they made me sign my paycheck, but refused to give me the money," she said. "I could not take it anymore."

It was almost midnight when Kamsiah took refuge in a McDonald's, one of the few places open 24 hours. "I had no money or documents because the passport was being held by the agency. I desperately waited until another Indonesian appeared," she said. "She told me about an NGO that provides assistance to domestic helpers and I went to them."

But her difficulties had only just begun as she was later arrested by the police. The family that had employed her accused her of stealing a wallet containing HK$7,300. Now, after proving her innocence, Kamsiah has filed a lawsuit for labor exploitation against her former employers.

She's not the only one. Until recently this situation went unnoticed to most Hong Kong citizens, but a particularly violent case has brought it out of the shadows. In January last year, Erwiana Sulistyaningsih showed that Kamsiah's was not an isolated case.

Case reopens debate in Hong Kong

Also an Indonesian, Sulistyaningsih was taken to the airport by her employers and forced to return to her country with just 100,000 Indonesian rupiah (around $8) in her pockets. "Do not even think about saying anything of what has happened in Hong Kong, because we will kill your parents!" they threatened.

With one day off per week, many foreign workers gather to meet in Hong Kong parks

Immigration officials let her leave without asking any questions - despite her broken nose, several missing teeth and bruises all over her body. Upon her arrival, doctors in Indonesia ordered her immediate admission to a hospital where they discovered that she had suffered brain damage due to repeated blows to the head.

On February 10, a Hong Kong court found her employer, Law Wan-tung, guilty of 18 separate charges of abuse, for which she will serve six years in prison. This case reopened the debate on the employment and living conditions faced by foreign domestic workers.

Protection laws go unenforced

"The problem is that the law itself discriminates against migrants working as maids in Hong Kong," said Mabel Au, Amnesty International's China director. "First there is the obligation of living with those who employ them, and, secondly, a rule stipulating that if they do not get a job in the two weeks following the termination of their previous contract they should leave the city. But the worst is that laws theoretically passed to protect these women from abuse are not implemented."

Au said an intricate web of mafia-like organizations profit from those women thanks to a lack of supervision by government authorities.

Grace said she didn't see any options other than signing a work contract

Labor exploitation starts when workers have to sink themselves in debt to pay large amounts of money to agents and continues when they arrive in Hong Kong where, by law, agencies arranging employment for them can only charge 10 percent of the first month's salary as service fee. That's about HK$401.

"In fact, the amount ends up being much higher," Au said. "Most of the girls are scared and have little information about legal formalities. They sign their contracts in a language they don't understand - Chinese and English - and have no idea how the sector works."

Left with nothing but debts

Such practices, Au added, mean the foreign workers are often paid less than the minimum wage and unable to report how they are ripped off by agencies and employers. The workers' passports are also confiscated upon arrival "leaving them vulnerable and fully exposed to abuse."

Grace knows that well. Originally from the Philippines, she signed a labor contract to work in Hong Kong but her employer's family sent her illegally to Dalian, in northeastern China. Without her passport and unable to speak any Chinese, she didn't know what to do, so she signed a work contract. After having worked there for a while, the employers refused to pay her and sent her back to Hong Kong with just 200 RMB ($32, 30 euros) in hand.

She has filed a lawsuit against the family who employed her, but said she's not very optimistic about the outcome. Grace said doesn't think she will be able to pay the 40,000 pesos ($903, 832 euro) in debts she contracted in the Philippines with the employment agency.

KPK Wins 2013 Magsaysay Award

Jakarta Globe, Rizky Amelia, July 24, 2013

Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission has been named one of the recipients of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of its relentless drive to weed out graft in the government.

The Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, which confers the annual honor dubbed the “Asian Nobel Prize,” announced on Wednesday that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was one of five recipients of this year’s prize, given in honor of “greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia.”

It cited the KPK’s “fiercely independent and successful campaign against corruption in Indonesia, combining the uncompromising prosecution of erring powerful officials with farsighted reforms in governance systems and the educative promotion of vigilance, honesty and active citizenship among all Indonesians.”

Carmencita Abella, the RMAF president, said this year’s award recipients were “three remarkable individuals and two amazing organizations, all deeply involved in creating sustainable solutions to seemingly intransigent social problems in their respective societies, problems which are most damaging to the lives of those trapped in poverty or ignorance.”

“They all refuse to give up, despite daunting adversity and opposition,” she said in a press release. “They are all deeply rooted in hope. We have much to learn from them, and much to celebrate about their greatness of spirit.”

Johan Budi, a spokesman for the KPK, told the Jakarta Globe that winning the award would not have been possible without the hard work of the public, independent antigraft watchdogs and the media in bringing corruption to light.

“We will treat this award as motivation to work even harder and never give up in the effort to eradicate corruption, no matter how difficult it is or how long it takes,” he said in Jakarta.

He added that the award also came as a timely reminder to the KPK, amid political pressure to curtail its powers, that it was on the right track in carrying out its publicly mandated duties.

The other winners of the 2013 Magsaysay Award are Ernesto Domingo, a health care pioneer from the Philippines; Lahpai Seng Raw, a Myanmar aid worker; Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan’s only female provincial governor; and Shakti Samuha, an anti-human-trafficking group from Nepal.

The KPK, which will receive its award at a ceremony in Manila on Aug. 31, becomes the latest Indonesian recipient of the prize named in honor of the former Philippine president who died in 1957.

Last year, Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto, who pioneered reporting on illegal logging in Indonesia’s national parks, was one of the recipients, while in 2011, Tri Mumpuni, a social worker, was honored for her foundation’s work to bring electricity to half a million rural residents by building micro-hydroelectric plants.

Indonesia, Philippines Plan January Global Debt Sales

Businessweek

By Shelley Smith, January 04, 2010, 08:38 AM EST

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are competing to be among the first Asian governments to sell foreign-currency bonds in 2010, as a global economic recovery supports investor appetite for emerging-market debt.

Indonesia plans to sell as much as $4 billion of U.S. dollar bonds with 10- and 30-year maturities, a person familiar with the matter said today. The Philippines is preparing to sell as much as $1.5 billion of debt denominated in dollars or euros, while Vietnam plans to raise as much as $1 billion in dollar bonds this month, according to people aware of the plans.

“There’s appetite for high-yielders,” said Michael Pisler, an emerging-market debt trader at SJS Markets Ltd. in Hong Kong. “The biggest determining factor will be fund inflows into the region as the economies improve.”

The difference in yield to own bonds in developing countries instead of Treasuries dropped 4.16 percentage points last year to 2.74 percentage points, according to an index compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Global funds bought more than $8 billion of emerging-market debt in 2009, after pulling out $18 billion in 2008, according to data published by EPFR Global.

The government may sell global bonds through a placement “when the time is right,” Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said in Jakarta today, without giving details. Indonesia hired Barclays Capital Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG for a sale, a ministry official said last month.

Time is Right

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, last sold $3 billion of bonds in overseas markets in February, and raised $650 million from the sale of Islamic dollar bonds in April. The government plans to raise $11 billion from local and overseas bond sales in 2010 to finance a budget deficit forecast at 98 trillion rupiah ($10.4 billion), or 1.6 percent of gross domestic product

Indonesia’s budget deficit totaled 87.2 trillion rupiah last year, less than a forecast 129.8 trillion rupiah, the Finance Ministry said on Jan. 1. The economy probably grew 4.3 percent to 4.4 percent last year, the ministry said.

Moody’s Investors Service lifted Indonesia’s foreign- currency debt ratings one level to Ba2 on Sept. 16, citing the economy’s resilience. The Moody’s rating is two levels below investment grade.

Investors demand a 2.08 percentage points yield premium over U.S. Treasuries to buy Indonesian debt, according to the JPMorgan EMBI+ spread. The gap narrowed 70 basis points in 2009, compared with a 167 basis points widening in 2008. The cost to protect the bonds against default also fell in 2009, according to credit-default swap prices compiled by CMA DataVision.

Philippines, Vietnam

Yields on Indonesian 30-year debt and Philippine 25-year dollar debt rose today, ING Groep prices showed.

The Philippines has sold dollar-denominated bonds every January since 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It plans to raise $2 billion from the sale of overseas debt in 2010 to fund a budget deficit that Finance Secretary Gary Teves said may climb to a record 293 billion pesos ($6.4 billion) this year.

The Philippines is “opportunistic” in its borrowing and will sell overseas bonds when it’s the “right time,” central bank Governor Amando Tetangco told reporters today in Manila.

The central bank allowed the government “in principle” to sell up to $1.5 billion of global bonds, a person familiar said on Dec. 29. Separate approval was given to a plan to sell about $500 million in yen-denominated bonds, the person said.

“The government would want to put its finances in a solid footing by borrowing abroad early and at good levels,” said Roland Avante, treasurer at Manila-based Sterling Bank of Asia. “That, and the huge liquidity in the local market, would help ease pressure on domestic debt.”

Vietnam may sell notes with 10-year maturities, according to a person who declined to be identified before a public announcement. Vietnam hired Barclays Capital, Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG to manage the sale, the person said.

--With assistance from David Yong in Singapore and Clarissa Batino in Manila. Editors: Sandy Hendry, Tom Kohn

To contact the reporter on this story: Shelley Smith in Hong Kong at +852-2977-6623 or ssmith118@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Kohn at +852-2977-6610 or tkohn@bloomberg.net; Sandy Hendry at +852-2977-6608 or shendry@bloomberg.net.

Indonesia Tops Graft List in Asia, Says Survey

The Jakarta Globe, April 8, 2009

Singapore. Indonesia is perceived as Asia’s most corrupt economy, an annual survey of foreign business executives showed on Wednesday.

According to the survey by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, or PERC, Singapore and Hong Kong remained the region’s least corrupt economies.

Despite the negative perception of Indonesia though, PERC noted “real headway in fighting the problem” under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was seeking reelection in July.

“To be sure, the absolute scores show corruption in the public and private sectors is still very high,” PERC told AFP.

“But our latest survey shows that residents in Indonesia are more favorably impressed with the determined way the KPK [Corruption Eradication Commission] has been fighting corruption than any of the other countries graded poorly for corruption.”

The major question in Indonesia was whether the anticorruption efforts could be sustained.

The March results are based on more than 1,700 responses from 14 Asian economies plus Australia and the United States, which were included for comparison purposes, PERC said.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst, Indonesia got 8.32. A score greater than 7.0 indicates “serious” corruption problems.

Last year’s cellar-dweller, the Philippines, made a marked improvement, ranking sixth worst with a score of 7.0.

Thailand was seen as the second most corrupt country with a grade of 7.63, but PERC said foreign investors were more concerned about political stability.

“Very few expatriate executives find that corruption makes the country a less attractive place to live and do business,” it said.

Agence France-Presse

Asian economies differ in response to global crisis

Aditya Suharmoko, THE JAKARTA POST, JAKARTA | Tue, 03/24/2009 9:10 AM

The road to economic recovery varies across Asian countries, with Indonesia, China and India perhaps the least affected by the global economic crisis, a seminar heard Monday.

China and India, two of the fastest growing economies in the world, are expected to still post positive economic growth this year, despite slowing from the past few years. Indonesia will also score positive growth, although it may be about 30 percent slower than in 2008.

The International Monetary Fund has said global growth may contract by between 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent this year.

“There is great hope that emerging economies, such as China and India, will launch new Keynesian initiatives leveraging private-sector funds and become the new engines of global growth that will drive the world economy to growth and prosperity once again,” said Naoyuki Yoshino, a professor at Keio University in Tokyo.

He was presenting his paper at a seminar titled “East Asia’s response to the global economic crisis” in Jakarta on Monday.

Yoshino said developed countries would be restricted from issuing government bonds to finance fiscal stimulus measures due to enormous fiscal deficits.

Japan, for instance, has public debts amounting to 180 percent of its GDP.Keynesian policies usually call for financing fiscal stimulus by issuing government bonds during hard times.

But Yoshino said issuing “revenue bonds” could be a way to utilize private sector funds.

With revenue bonds, the government bears a portion of infrastructure costs, with the remaining costs funded by the private sector through the issuance of revenue bonds, he said.

“The private sector will get return based on the expected revenue from the project to be constructed,” Yoshino said.

“In some Asian countries, notably China and India, domestic demand will increase when their economies are revitalized through efficient infrastructure development.”

South Korea, as a trade-dependent country, needs developed countries to aim their economic stimulus package at infrastructure, which may help recover South Korea’s falling exports.

As an example, financial aid to Detroit automakers in the US will affect the competitiveness of South Korea’s automakers.

Meanwhile, Indonesia, whose economy is mainly dependent on domestic demand, has allocated Rp 12.2 trillion (US$1.05 billion) for the development of infrastructure and the rural sector.

University of Indonesia economist M. Chatib Basri said spending on labor-intensive infrastructure projects would have a significant impact on job opportunities and economic growth.

The seminar was also of the opinion that Indonesia was relatively better off than neighboring countries in coping with the global crisis, with Thailand and the Philippines severely hit by the crisis.

“Fiscal policy is the only option left,” Bhanupong Nidhiprabha, an associate professor at Thammasat University, wrote in his paper.

“Unless the government maintains law and order to restore business sentiment and consumer confidence, both monetary and fiscal stimuli will fail miserably.”

Thailand’s political condition is far more unstable compared to Indonesia.

The country has seen chaotic power struggles in the past two years.

The Philippines may be facing an even worse economic situation, as the monetary policy has not been unable to accelerate lending, and with its fiscal policy “constrained by a historically poor ability to raise the tax to GDP ratio”, said Maria Socorro H. Gochoco Bautista, a professor at the University of the Philippines, in her paper.

“The right kind of expenditures needs to be undertaken,” she said.

“These might include direct cash transfers to the poor in exchange for a promise to keep children in school.

“Allowing peso depreciation, assuming enough workers remain employed abroad, will also boost incomes of the poor and middle classes to sustain spending.”

Major banks slash growth SE Asian growth f'casts

Reuters, Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:49am IST

SINGAPORE, March 19 (Reuters) - Major investment banks slashed growth forecasts for Southeast Asian economies, with one predicting an 8 percent contraction in Singapore, as the weakening global economy hits the region's key export industry.

Goldman Sachs now expects Singapore's gross domestic product to fall 8 percent this year from a previous forecast for a 4 percent contraction hurt also by a slowing real estate market and shrinking investment.

It also cut its GDP forecasts for 2009 for four other Southeast Asian economies. Among them, its sharpest downward revision was for Malaysia to shrink 3.5 percent from growth of 1.7 percent previously, while it saw Thai GDP slipping 4 percent from a 0.8 percent drop previously.

Indonesia's economy was expected to grow at a slower pace of 2.5 percent from 3.0 percent previously, and the Philippine economy was expected to shrink 0.5 percent from a growth forecast of 1.8 percent previously, Goldman said in a note on Thursday.

"We reiterate our view that Singapore has one of the highest exposures to weakness in external demand, because of its high ratio of exports to GDP and the high portion of exports-driven domestic demand," it said.

HSBC lowered growth forecasts for Singapore to -7 percent and for Malaysia to -3.5 percent, from -5 percent and +0.5 percent previously.

Credit Suisse saw a 6.5 percent contraction for Singapore, a 5.2 percent contraction for Japan as frozen trade hits exporters, but 8 percent growth for China given its policy stimulus.

Goldman's forecast on Singapore is the most bearish among private economists, although Singapore's most powerful politician, Lee Kuan Yew, told a Reuters seminar earlier this month the economy could contract by as much as 10 percent in 2009 if exports continued to slide in the second quarter.

A poll of analysts by Reuters on Wednesday [ID:nBKK465713] put the average forecast for Singapore at a 4.9 percent contraction SGGDP1, in line with the government's official forecast and a survey of economists by the central bank.

Goldman saw the Singapore dollar at 1.64 to the U.S dollar within 3 months while HSBC expected a 2-3 percent one-off shift downwards in the band, with scope to ease policy again. (Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Neil Chatterjee & Kazunori Takada)