Opportunities and risk in complex region: while Asia Pacific is outgrowing most other regions in the world and offers many opportunities for exporters, the region is also faced with high risk.

• Author: Jones, Sarah
• Position: Overseas Trading

It's quite a complex story to tell about Asia," Donnelly said. "There are some overall regional drivers, but there are a lot of individual country risks as well to come to grips with."

Donnelly says exporters face a different set oil risks to what was faced during the 1997-1998 Asian Crisis, which saw the region plummet into recession.

"A lot of countries got sideswiped by the Asian financial crisis, but they seemed to have learnt their lesson," he said

"I would say security risk has gone up as a result of JI and Bali, but the benchmark was '97, '98 and a lot of these economies are tar more financially bullet proof then they were back then."

However, Gerling NCM South East Oceania managing director Geoff Hickey says while Asian countries are perceived to be riskier than the US or Western Europe, most of the company's claims are on insolvencies, rather than on market risk. "We pay just as many claims or more in the US and in Europe because of insolvencies," he said

Which countries?

According to Hickey, places like Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are deemed to be at the low end of the risk scale, while countries like Malaysia and India sit around the middle. Countries like Vietnam and Indonesia are among tire riskier countries in the region.

EFIC's Donnelly agrees and says Indonesia has to be...