Asian stock markets dip on global economic growth fears

Asian stock markets have fallen on Monday, extending one of the worst sell-offs in recent years, on concerns about the state of the global economy.

Japan's main Nikkei 225 index fell 0.9%, as South Korea, Singapore, Australia and Taiwan all dropped.

Friday saw shares slump globally, with trillions of dollars wiped off the value of global markets.

Jitters were fanned further by Standard & Poor's downgrade of the US credit rating, and European debt issues.

More wobbles?
Analysts warned that markets would remain volatile in coming weeks.

"The ratings downgrade has been an unprecedented event," said Alvin Liew of UOB Bank in Singapore.

"It has implications as it shows that growth prospects in the US are expected to remain sluggish over the next two to two-and-a-half years."

Standard & Poor's cut the US's top-notch AAA rating for the first time ever late on Friday, citing concerns about the size of the country's budget deficits.

The fear for many investors is that the US economy will slow further, and enter a double-dip recession.

This in turn would hurt Asia, which relies on the US, the world's biggest economy, to buy billions of dollars of exports every month.

"We are still dependent on demand from the US and Europe," said Arjuna Mahendran of HSBC Private Bank.

"A slowdown in those economies, will see a slump in consumer demand and that takes away a big support pillar for the region's growth," he added.

'Knee jerk'
With an increased sense of economic risk, investors continued to make changes to their asset holdings on Monday.

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