Nath takes a dig at troubled US banks

NEW DELHI: Taking a pot shot at the US financial sector, which is facing one of the worst turmoils ever, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath today said those "preaching" others have not kept their own house in order.

"Those who preached us best practices have not helped their own financial sector," Nath told reporters here when asked to comment on the US financial crisis, worsened by collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Nath said the amount of exposure of the banks going down is small in Asia. "A very small fraction of that (US economic turmoil) is in Asia. This shows that best practices have been adhered to in Asia," Nath said.

However, he said, the economic turmoil in the US is causing concern to most of the global economies. "It still has to be assessed to what extent it will affect the economy in Europe," he said.

The US credit crisis worsened yesterday with 158-year-old Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy protection after losing around 60 billion dollars in the sinking real-estate market. Earlier, the troubled investment bank Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America.