FORMER PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT ADDRESSES ASIA-PACIFIC NATIONS.

MANILA, Nov 1 Asia Pulse - Former President Fidel V. Ramos today said Asia-Pacific nations must adopt new strategies if their economies are to remain bouyant in the years to come.

Ramos made the statement in the wake of the global economic crisis spawned by the threat of international terrorism.

In a speech before the "Heads of Asia-Pacific Operations (HAPO) Forum" organized by the Economic Group of London in Singapore, Ramos stressed that business companies will now have to adopt collective strategies in dealing with a powerful yet faceless threat posed by terrorism.

He said the fragile prosperity of the interconnected world is threatened, he said.

Ramos said that while the international community is in a massive struggle against an enemy that is largely unseen, "no one can predict the exact dimensions of this new king of violent challenge because international terrorism operates not only in the frontlines of tactical combat but also in the political, economic, ethnic and scientific battlefields."

The export-oriented countries in East Asia have suffered the worst economic fallout since the September 11 attacks, he said.

Ramos pointed to the radical decline of transactions in almost all of the stock exchanges in the Asia-Pacific rim.