Staff writer

The private sector is responsible for the recent economic turmoil in Asia, and businesspeople are the ones who can help tackle the problem, according to the secretary general of the Pacific Basin Economic Council.

Robert Lees, secretary general of PBEC, stressed that the recent economic turmoil is driven by the private sector, unlike the Latin American currency crisis. "In the case of (South) Korea, they were building too much capacity. Koreans can sell 1 million cars in a year, but they have enough factories to make 6 million cars. That's also true in chemicals and many other products," Lees told The Japan Times in an interview.