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Asia-Pacific consumers remain optimistic: MasterCard survey

Asia-Pacific consumers remain optimistic about the coming year despite global financial market volatility, a survey by MasterCard said yesterday.

Consumers' outlook toward the economy, regular income, stock market and quality of life have improved from the previous survey done in May, MasterCard said in a news release.

"The volatility in financial markets across the world, announcement of heavy subprime losses by global financial heavyweights, rising oil prices and inflation costs, seem not to have dampened confidence for the first half of 2008," it said.

"Ten out of the 13 Asia-Pacific markets have registered an increase in consumer confidence levels," it said.

The MasterCard Index, derived from a survey, measures consumer confidence on a scale from zero to 100, with 100 being most optimistic.

Vietnam, with an index score of 94.3, again showed the highest level of consumer confidence, followed by Hong Kong at 85.9, China at 85.5 and Singapore at 83.6, MasterCard said.

South Korea registered the largest increase in optimism, jumping 15.6 points since the last survey, to 64.1.

Thai consumers regained some lost confidence, rising from a score of 36.7 to 44.2, the survey showed, but Japanese turned cautious as the country dropped to an index score of 48.6 from 66.8, MasterCard said.

Taiwan's consumers ranked as the most pessimistic, with a score of 29.7.

The data is broadly consistent with the short-term outlook of economic conditions in key regional markets, said Yuwa Hedrick-Wong (王月魂), Asia-Pacific economic adviser for MasterCard Worldwide.

For next year, the critical uncertainty is China, which has become an increasingly important market for exports from the rest of Asia, Yuwa said.

"Can its economic expansion stay robust in spite of weakening global demand? Depending on the performance of the China market, outlook for the second half of 2008 might be very different," Yuwa said.
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