31.   External debt obligations of corporations are what is causing much of the trouble.

32.   Fernandez has also proposed using gasoline taxes to pay external debts and creating a commission to investigate budget overruns.

33.   He said Malaysia can have a higher growth but at the expense of high external debt and other related problems.

34.   He said one of the reasons the Philippine economy is proving more resilient than others is its steadily improving external debt situation.

35.   He said external debts were among their biggest problems.

36.   However, there is a danger markets will lose patience with the accumulation of U.S. external debt and drive the dollar sharply lower.

37.   In terms of expenditures, the exchange rate primarily affects the size of external debt servicing, fuel-oils subsidies and development expenditures financed by foreign aid.

38.   In those countries, more is spend on servicing external debt than on either education or health, he said.

39.   Instead, the recipient countries have continued to slide deeper into external debt.

40.   It also reflects a rapid rise in the burden of external debt repayment as a result of the devaluation of the Thai currency.