Asian central bankers need to mull monetary tightening measures to prevent asset bubbles as the region embarked on a mild recovery amid a flood of liquidity, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Wednesday.

Speaking at an investment summit held on the sidelines of the 17th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week meetings, Zoellick said he is relatively "comfortable" with the growth prospects this year but anticipates risks to the global recovery next year.

One of the concerns is the looming asset bubbles in some sectors as East Asian economies returned to the growth paths after bottoming out from the recession, Zoellick said.

Policy makers around the world cut interests rates and pumped a lot of money into the financial system at the height of the worst financial crisis in six decades starting in the third quarter last year.

"Now the real challenge is the counter-party risk. As growth returns, you have a world awash with credits," Zoellick said, adding that Asian central bankers particularly face more challenges as they can't simply follow the moves of the Federal Reserves as they did in the past.

"If they did that this time, they run the risk of inflationary effects in some sectors and create some other dangers that undermine the current recovery," Zoellick said, adding that because the conditions in the United States and Europe remain difficult, their position to keep rates low is acceptable.

Among APEC economies, the Reserve Bank of Australia has raised interest rates twice in the past three months, while central banks in some better performing Asian economies also seem ready to raise their record low interest rates.

But the World Bank chief said he did not suggest policy-makers to prematurely withdraw the extraordinary fiscal stimulus put into the place to primp-pump the economy out of recession.

He said these emergency measures should follow through the course of next year.

At the G20 summit in Britain, finance ministers agreed to adopt a detailed timetable on exiting stimulus measures, with the first steps to be announced by the end of January 2010. The APEC members, nine of which are in the G20 group, are expected to endorse a similar commitment to keep the stimulus until global recovery gains solid footing.

Founded in 1989, the APEC groups 21 economies around the Pacific Rim that account for more than half of the world's economic output and about 44 percent of world trade. APEC leaders, including China's Hu Jintao, US's Barack Obama and Japan's Yukio Hatoyama are expected to meet in the group's annual summit at this weekend.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2009)