Kuala Lumpur - the rise of Asia as the center of global economic activity has been sudden and profound. Twenty-five years ago, Asian countries were still struggling to attain political stability, having been an arena for superpower rivalry since the end of the Second World War. Today, when much of the rest of the world is laboring under a cloud of pessimism, Asia is fired by a new sense of confidence. Japan has tilted the balance of economic might; ASEAN and the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) continue to surge ahead in prosperity; China, once dubbed by Napoleon as the sleeping giant, has finally awakened; South Asia is already on the growth bandwagon and the countries of Indochina are rebuilding their economies

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