The global crisis wiped a staggering US$50 trillion off the value of financial assets last year, including US$9.6 trillion of losses in developing Asia alone, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said yesterday.
“This is by far the most serious crisis to hit the world economy since the Great Depression,” ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda said.
But he predicted Asia would be “one of the first regions to emerge from it.”
A study commissioned by the Manila-based lender on the impact of the financial crisis on emerging economies estimated the value of financial assets worldwide to have dropped by US$50 trillion last year.
It said developing Asia was hit harder — losing the equivalent of just over one year’s worth of GDP — than other emerging economies because the region has expanded much more rapidly.
In Latin America, losses were estimated at US$2.1 trillion.
The study showed that, the figures provide clear proof of the close connections between markets and economies around the world, leaving few, if any, countries immune to financial or economic fallout.
A recovery can only now be envisaged for late this year or early next year, it said.
A sprawling region, developing Asia includes 44 economies from the central Asian republics to China to the Pacific islands. The bank had earlier projected the region’s growth to slow to 5.8 percent this year from an estimated 6.9 percent last year.
Kuroda said yesterday the impact of the crisis could result in a spike in unemployment, slower growth rates and depressed stock markets.
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