SE Asia Stocks-Singapore near 4-week low, others mostly lower

* Major bourses fall; S'pore's UOB, CapitaLand among losers

* Indonesia, Malaysia near 3-week lows

* Electronics makers firm on turnaround hopes

By Viparat Jantraprap

BANGKOK, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Singapore shares fell to their
lowest in almost four weeks on Wednesday, led by losses in
financials and property firms such as UOB and CapitaLand, and
other major Southeast Asian bourses also slid on worries about
the economic recovery.
Malaysia and Indonesia fell close to three-week lows while
Thailand tumbled more than 1 percent.

Supakorn Soontornkit, a senior fund manager at MFC Asset
Management in Bangkok, felt the global stock market pull-back
would be short-lived, and he said he was upbeat about
government stimulus programmes in Thailand.

"I view this as a short-term correction in equities
markets. The long-term outlook is still positive," he said.

Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index .FTSTI ended
1.8 percent lower, just above the lowest level since July 24
seen in early trade. United Overseas Bank (UOBH.SI) fell 2.5
percent and developer CapitaLand (CATL.SI) lost 1.9 percent.
CapitaLand, Southeast Asia's largest property developer, had
gained in early trade after it said on Tuesday it was deploying
S$1 billion of the S$1.8 billion raised from a recent rights
issue to its businesses in China, Vietnam and the Ascott Group.

One bright spot in the region was shares in electronics
makers, with Thailand's Delta Electronics DELT.BK gaining 0.6
percent and Malaysia's Unisem (UNSM.KL) rising 4.6 percent.

Delta told Reuters in an interview it expected the weakness
in electronic component demand to have hit bottom in the second
quarter, echoing recent views of Asian electronics makers which
forecast a turnaround in the second half of 2009.
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Malaysia .KLSE lost 0.8 percent and Indonesia .JKSE
dropped 2.5 percent. Earlier they fell to the lowest since July
30.

Losers in the region included palm plantation shares, which
fell along with weaker Malaysian crude palm oil futures, with
IOI Corp (IOIB.KL) down 1.6 percent and Sime Darby (SIME.KL)
0.5 percent lower.

Singapore's Wilmar International (WLIL.SI) lost 3.0
percent, Indonesia's Astra Agro (AALI.JK) fell 5.2 percent and
Thailand's Univanich Palm UVAN.BK ended 1.3 percent lower.

In Kuala Lumpur, favourable results pushed Proton PROT.KL
2.5 percent higher.

In Jakarta Indonesia's second-largest mobile phone
operator, PT Indosat Tbk (ISAT.JK), fell almost 5 percent after
it reported steady net profit for the first half.

Bucking the trend, the Philippine index .PSI rose 1.1
percent, reversing a three-day fall, led by a 7 percent gain in
conglomerate Benpres Holdings Corp BPC.PS and a 4.6 percent
rise in top miner Philex Mining Corp (PX.PS).

Vietnam .VNI climbed 1.8 percent, with Tan Dai Hung
Plastic TPC.HM and Vung Tau House Development HDC.HM each
rising 5 percent. For Vietnam's stock report sees
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($1=34.03 Baht)
(Additional reporting by Saranya Suksomkij in BANGKOK)
(Editing by Alan Raybould)