COMMENT As the heads of government from South-East Asia and beyond gather in Bali for the 19th Asean Summit, the economic struggles of the eurozone are never far from view.

With each day heralding a new piece of bad news - another bailout, another administration going into freefall - leaders and economists across Europe and around the world watch nervously and hope to avoid similar fates.

It would be easy to look at Europe’s woes and react by drawing in on ourselves, battening down the hatches and waiting for the storm to pass. But isolationism is never the way forward.

The global economy is just that: global. It belongs to the whole world. Trade and industry is more intertwined and interdependent than at any other point in history, and pretending otherwise is simply not an option.