Soros: Worst of global crisis is over

Published: 2009/06/22

BILLIONAIRE hedge fund manager George Soros said the worst of the global financial crisis is over, and called for new international regulations to maintain open markets.

"Definitely, the worst is behind us," Hungarian-born Soros said in an interview yesterday with Polish television station TVN24.

He called the crisis the most serious in his lifetime, adding, "This is the end of an era. The question is what's going to come out of it in the future.

"Without new international regulations, "globalisation will fall apart," possibly spawning a system of "state capitalism" like the one that exists in China, he said.

Soros, who recently returned from China, said the world's third-largest economy is "growing in strength" because the country was relatively unaffected by the crisis. -- Bloomberg