Reduced demand for Asia's exports will force Asians to become bigger consumers themselves, says Morgan Stanley Asia CEO Stephen Roach.

"I think (an) important outcome of this global crisis is you will see Asia finally 'get religion' of internal private consumption — the piece that was missing from the response to the financial crisis of 1997-98," Roach told a meeting of the Asia Society.

Roach, one of the few economists to predict the current economic crisis, says that Asia's failure to develop its own markets means the slowdown will hit the region especially hard.

"Now, with a monster external demand shock — the U.S., Japan, Europe, all in recession simultaneously, something we have never seen post World War II - Asia, which is much more externally dependent today than it was 10 years ago, is in trouble," Roach notes.

It is now imperative for their governments to promote consumer spending among the region's notoriously aggressive savers, he says.

Governments in China, India, and other Asian nations have announced fiscal stimulus packages of their own totaling more than $672 billion in an effort to get their economies going again, Bloomberg reports.

The biggest Asian stimulus move so far has occurred in China, where leaders unveiled a $585 billion program, equivalent to about 7 percent of GDP over two years, late last year.