Asian editorial excerpts-LESSONS FROM JAPAN'S WOES.

TOKYO, April 11 Kyodo

Selected editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

LESSONS FROM JAPAN'S WOES (Business Times, Singapore)

The sheer scope and cost of the measures that Japan is being forced to adopt now -- to put its banks back into the business of financial intermediation -- illustrate how dangerous it is to allow banking system problems to fester for a decade, as Japan had done.

These problems could easily be replicated elsewhere, not least in Asia.

Only when Japan's economy had stagnated so long that serious deflation set in did the Bank of Japan concede the need to pump new money forcibly into banks by boosting their reserves.

This measure, taken last month, was a start -- but only a start.

Last Friday, the Japanese government responded with a series of measures designed to force banks to write off their nonperforming loans (NPLs) within two years and to persuade them to reduce their dangerous reliance upon profits from share sales to finance provisions against bad debts and to boost their overall financial results.

In theory, these measures should help but it is almost certain that they will not be sufficient in themselves.

The missing link still in Japan's strategy is a public asset management company of the kind adopted by Sweden and others, and which would purchase NPLs and collateral from the banks.

Other East Asian nations would do well to heed these lessons and to make realistic calculations now of how long it will take their banks to provide against ''bubble economy'' bad debt in an environment of low economic growth.

If the conclusion is a matter of years, then it is better to bite the bullet now and opt for one or other of the solutions that Japan had tried to avoid but would ultimately be forced to adopt.

Even the United States may have something to learn as its economy begins what could be a long descent from a mountain of debt.

(April 11)