Asia's hedge fund renaissance

Asian economies are well on the road to post-crisis recovery - thanks to a combination of measures that together have served to reduce the region's systemic risks, with the main factors being the marked improvements in bank regulations, exchange rate regimes and foreign reserve levels. Demand for hedge funds in Asia is soaring, as the formerly much-maligned hedge fund industry enters a phase of significant growth. This remarkable turnaround is perhaps an implicit acknowledgment that hedge funds had been unfairly indicted as one of the major contributors to the crisis when it was the complex interplay of other macro factors that were ultimately responsible for the meltdown; factors such as overwhelming levels of foreign debt, high domestic interest rates and too rapid a liberalization of currency markets.