'Better late than never' is the reflexive defence for tardiness and, on behalf of the international banking community, we hope it applies to the markets of Southeast Asia.
ING's gang from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations came through town yesterday extolling the benefits of the 'Tips' markets and Malaysia.
Tips is the acronym dreamed up to lump together the Thai, Indonesian and Philippine markets at the end of the 1990s.
At the time, and until recently, these were markets non grata, having earned the displeasure of the global financial community after the run on the Thai baht in early 1997 spread region-wide financial turmoil.
'Nobody looks at them seriously any more. All these countries you can afford to neglect when you only have so much time,' was the opinion of one fund manager in 2000.
And with good reason. After the tempest of the Asian crisis wore out, the region was ravaged. The foreign money had pulled out, the banks had called in their loans and political and economic uncertainty was the order of the day.