As Asian countries steadily recover from the region's financial and economic crises, the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) will dispatch a mission to the area next spring, it was learned Wednesday. The Asian mission, led by Chairman Takashi Imai, will visit Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand in late March and is expected to meet the top political and economic leaders of those countries. The mission, which consists of several senior members of Japan's most powerful business lobby, intends to determine the situation in the region, which was hit hard by the economic crisis in 1997. Keidanren sent a mission to the region the same year. Asian nations' economies have showed signs of recovery, supported by such factors as the favorable electronics industry in the global market, the soaring U.S. economy and the high appreciation of the yen. Economic growth rates in 2000 are estimated at 4.5 percent for Indonesia, 6.3 percent for Singapore and 4.9 percent for Thailand, according to the Institute of Developing Economies, a semi-governmental research body.
