Asian Stockmarkets: The Inside Story

Asian stockmarkets, especially those on the East Asian cutting edge of the Pacific Rim, have become a focus of international investment attention. They are seen as a way for outsiders to tap into the remarkable economic prosperity of the region. Now that institutional investors from Wall Street and the City of London have conquered the Tokyo stockmarket, they are looking to the "second Japans" of South Korea and Taiwan, and beyond.

One glance at the upward spiralling index Ographs of most Asian markets in the past year or so, allied with the continuing economic dynamism of East Asia at least, is sufficient to explain this enthusiasm. Yet the inside story of the region's stockmarkets is often very different to how things appear from outside.

The "second Japans" for a start, seem still to The be ten years behind Tokyo in opening up their markets to outsiders. South Korea and Taiwan are more like Mexico than Japan in this respect fearful of a foreign-investor invasion and restricting entry to special investment funds. Dealings in the Tokyo stockmarket itself are by no means as transparent as they appear at first sight, and the open-door markets of Hongkong and Singapore have some hidden and hazardous aspects.

This book looks behind doors, not only in East Asia but in markets right across the ASEAN region and the Indian sub-Continent also. It assesses the problems as well as the opportunities confronting investors. It presents a picture of what dealing is like on the inside -in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hongkong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila and Bombay.