This will be the Year of the Tiger, which comes round every 12 years. It starts on January 28th, the Chinese new year. For those born in the Year of the Tiger (1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998), the necromancers forecast a fairly happy time with no dramatic changes.
The so-called tiger economies of Asia should, however, heed the advice of the astrologer in the Philippines Business World, who said: "Though Tigers are renowned risk-takers, they will need to keep a tight rein over finances."
After a dozen boom years, many Asian countries found in 1997 that they could no longer imitate the action of the tiger, however much they stiffened the sinews and summoned up the blood (with apologies to Henry V). Those who lost everything in the economic crisis could but take the advice of poet Ralph Hodgson to kneel down
with angry prayers
for tamed and shabby tigers.
"He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount," says an old Chinese proverb, but George Soros and other western fund managers made nonsense of this adage when they slipped off the enfeebled Asian tigers and escaped unscathed with their investments.
Indeed "tiger economies" have got such a bad name now that Irish officials in Asia have stopped boasting about the "Celtic Tiger" - especially when their own salaries dwindle daily with the Irish currency sliding like the Thai baht.
As for the real thing, the fabled tigers of Asia are also very much under threat in the year named after them. Only about 5,000 tigers remain in the wild since they evolved in southern China more than a million years ago.
Up to the 1940s, eight sub-species existed, but since then the tigers of Bali, the Caspian region and Java have disappeared. The South China tiger is destined to follow them into extinction, according to writer Geoffrey Ward in the December edition of National Geographic. He estimated that fewer than 30 individuals existed outside zoos. Beijing Youth Daily on January 1st gave the figure as 10.
The remaining subspecies, the Bengal, Indochinese, Sumatran and Siberian, are all also endangered. The main reason is the reduction of their habitat and the game on which they live. But there is another, more sinister factor: the killing of tigers by humans for their bones and other body parts.
In India, at least 94 were butchered by poachers in 1994 and 116 in 1995, according to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, mainly to supply the manufacturers of traditional medicine in China.
There is big money in tiger bones and other parts. The penis is supposed to have magical powers. Ground tiger bones have been used for some 1,000 years to make powder and pills to ease the pain of rheumatism sufferers. Tiger bone is in fact little different than other mammal bones, containing phosphorous, calcium and iron, and there is no scientific basis for its alleged benefits.
Several countries have been co-operating to stop tiger poaching since a New Delhi conference in 1994. International trade in parts is banned and Exxon has pledged $1 million a year over five years to help an international "Save the Tiger Fund".
The good news is that the Siberian tiger may be coming back from the brink. The WWF estimates there are about 450 living in the woods of the Maritime and Khabarov regions in the Russian far east, almost twice as many as 12 years ago, thanks to an enlightened Moscow policy of conservation and better patrolling of the ChineseRussian border. However, the Moscow Times warned last May that local scientists put the figure at 250, with Russian poachers using helicopters to fulfil orders from Chinese dealers.
There is also hope that in 1998 doctors of traditional Chinese medicine will begin using pig bone as a substitute for tiger bone in treating patients - an idea promoted by a group of doctors and wildlife conservationists at a recent Hong Kong symposium.
"Before international trade was banned, tigerbone medicines were being sold by the tens of millions," said Judy Mills, director of Traffic East Asia, an arm of the WWF. "Yet as few as 5,000 tigers remain in the wild, and illegal trade continues."
Ironically, the main proponents of conservation are now found in China among the doctors of traditional medicine who, with stocks of tiger bones almost exhausted, fear the collapse of their business of curing male sexual impotence and aiding recovery after disease.
Clearly the biggest favour that the world could do for tigers in the Year of the Tiger is to leave them alone. And that applies to the name as well.
"Tiger economy" has become an overworked cliche. Sub-editors seem to agree. A headline the other day in the International Herald Tribune said: "In Asia Crisis, Japan is the Lion that Squeaks."
So is this to be the Year of the Lion for the financial media? Whatever. Anyway here's my economic forecast for the Year of the Tiger: Don't expect to hear the roar of Asian lions.