QUITO, Ecuador -- (AP) -- Police dispersed protesters with tear gas in isolated
             street clashes Thursday, but a two-day national strike against economic reforms
             appeared to lose steam.

             No injuries were reported. Stronger clashes Wednesday left 19 people injured
             and 97 arrested as protesters threw Molotov cocktails and burned tires in cities
             across Ecuador.

             Ecuador is locked in its worst economic crisis in recent decades, battered by low
             prices for its main export, oil, and $2.6 billion in damage from El Niño-powered
             floods last year.

             President Jamil Mahuad met with his economic advisors Thursday to devise an
             emergency plan to salvage the Andean nation's collapsing economy, which saw its
             national currency lose a quarter its value last week.

             Mahuad is anxious to reduce a large budget deficit and restore investor confidence
             in Ecuador, which has more than 12 million people.

             He has promised he will announce drastic measures to cut public spending, boost
             tax collection and stop the currency's fall. Strike leaders have vowed to oppose
             such measures.

             Ecuador's banks remained closed for a fourth straight day Thursday after Mahuad
             ordered an emergency bank holiday to prevent mass withdrawals, amid fears that
             the financial system was nearing collapse.

             With the banks scheduled to open today, bankers asked the government to
             announce tough economic and financial reforms to increase investor confidence.

             ``We expect President Mahuad to announce a global economic plan that will give
             sufficient confidence to avoid a run on deposits,'' Carlos Larreategui, head of
             Ecuador's Private Banking Association, told Dow Jones Newswires.

             Mahuad decreed a 60-day state of emergency Tuesday to offset the double
             impact of the strike and financial crisis, and ordered machine gun-toting police to
             guard oil and electricity installations from strikers.

             The strikers want Mahuad to back down on austerity measures that have ended
             fuel subsidies, frozen wages and caused prices to soar for already impoverished
             Ecuadoreans.

             The strike was called by Ecuador's powerful, leftist-led unions and has the support
             of student and Indian groups.
 

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