ADB Cuts Regional Forecast
But individual economic performances mirror Covid-19 approach
The Asian Development Bank has had to make a second cut in its forecasts for Asian economies in 2020 and its estimates for recovery in 2021 are rather tentative. There is still a great amount of guesswork and ADB forecasts are a little more optimistic than those of many private sector economists.
Nonetheless, they make interesting reading as they point to the fact that relative performances are not necessarily linked to familiar factors such as global trade growth, commodity prices, and terms of trade. Indeed the responses to the Covid-19 epidemic show the interaction of different forces. Nor is there a simple solution named “control of the virus.”
A selection of the latest ADB forecasts of GDP:
These widely varying numbers are despite official stimulus levels with an even wider range, from 2.5 percent in China, 3.2 percent in Indonesia, 6.3 percent in the Philippines, 12 percent in Singapore, 13 percent in Thailand, and 15 percent in Malaysia.