KUALA LUMPUR Southeast Asia is expected to record slower average growth of about four percent this year amid a sharper than expected world slowdown, AFP quoted the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as saying. "The global slowdown is set to coincide with an unwinding of the global electronics' inventory cycle," Bank President Tadao Chino warned in a speech released Sunday. "Large swings in global electronics demand in 1996 hit regional exports hard and now look likely to do so again in 2001." Chino said this year's forecast figure, which compares to average gross domestic product growth of around five percent in the region last year, was not a cause for alarm. ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was now much less vulnerable to an economic crisis, he said. ADB projections are that growth will return to five percent in 2002. But Chino called for continuing fiscal and corporate reforms "to build strong foundations for growth." The ADB chief stressed the need to reform the way companies are run as well as their balance sheets. "For this to happen, creditors and minority shareholders must be further empowered if they are to have the ability to leverage change." Public debt in some ASEAN countries was also now so high that it limited the scope for deficit spending to offset a slowdown. "To avoid the risk of crowding out the private sector and stunting future growth, means have to be found of containing public debt in a way that does not jeopardize badly needed public investments in social and physical infrastructure," Chino said. He also urged poorer ASEAN members not to postpone "the difficult challenges of liberalizing markets" and of closer regional and global integration.