The Malaysian Finance Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, says he won't change his projection of two-and-half percent growth for this year, despite Saturday's announcement by the Central Bank that the economy had contracted by nearly two percent in the first quarter alone.

Mr Anwar said the worst was over, and that Malaysia would show positive growth from April.

His Singaporean counterpart, Richard Hu, was more circumspect about his country's prospects.

Mr Hu said he did not expect the Singapore economy to shrink, but warned growth would be sluggish because of the Asian economic crisis.

Stock markets have seen a general fall across the region, with Malaysia and Thailand both down almost four per cent.