East Asian Economic News 　　*Some of the Asian companies running into difficulties in the current financial crisis have been selling their hotels in the United States, The New York Times reported Sunday. 　　*The banking system of Thailand lost 300 billion baht(one US dollar is about 37 baht) in 1998, due to the attack of the Asian financial crisis. 　　The large amount of bad debts is the main reason for the loss, economists said. 　　*The export surplus of Japan hit a record high of about 13.99 trillion yen in 1998 and was 40.1 percent higher than that of 1997, according to the statistics published by the Japanese Finance Ministry. WorldNews 1999-01-26 Page7 Full Story in Chinese