k themselves indoors whenever possible and the price of surgical masks has more than doubled since the smog discended.An official said fires continued to burn in Indonesia. For this reason, the haze was not expected to clear at least until the north-east monsoon in November. More than 1,000 Malaysian fire-fighters have been deployed in Sumatra to help Indonesia battle the blazes, which has caused the blanket of smog over Indonesia.Other problems have happened to Malaysia since the smog caused by forest fires in Indonesia like the collapsing stock market, free-falling currency and the subsequent cancelling of several government backed mega-projects like, the Commonwealth Games, which promised to be the biggest in its 68-year history.Financial CostsCurrency crises and slumps on the stock markets in several countries showed that the "Asian Tigers", some of the worlds fastest-growing economies, are no longer roaring. The skyscrapers in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, symbols of the regions wealth, were barely visible and the Petronas Twin Towers, the worlds tallest building, was just a ghostly form in the mist. And with factories throughout the region having to scale down activity, the world economy could also be hit, with prices rising in the electronics industry, which the region dominates. Tour operators are offering alternative holidays and refunds to hundreds of holidaymakers who were due to travel to South-East Asia, which was still blanketed in smog caused by the forest fires in Indonesia. The tourist industry would be severely damaged as people would be declined to visited a country so heavily polluted and this will mean less foreign income and could result in unemployment and unrest.The Malaysian ringgit and Indonesian rupiah hit an all time low in September as currency dealers began to fear the economic consequences for the regions of the forest fires in Indonesia which have covered much of South-East Asia in a noxious s...
