East Asia’s emerging economies are rebounding from the global recession faster than anticipated, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said yesterday as it raised growth forecasts for the region.
The Manila-based lender said it expects growth of 4.2 percent this year and 6.8 percent next year. That’s up from the bank’s earlier forecasts of 3.6 percent and 6.5 percent. Emerging East Asia comprises 10 Southeast Asian countries plus China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan.
The recovery has been aided by government stimulus spending and improving exports, though the pace of the rebound varies widely, the ADB said.
Less open economies in Southeast Asia were partly insulated from the global crisis but are not expected to recover strongly either, it said.
China, buoyed by massive stimulus spending and easy credit, recorded by far the strongest recovery, growing 8.9 percent in the third quarter. The ADB maintained its growth forecast for China at 8.2 percent this year and 8.9 percent next year.
Middle-income Southeast Asian economies — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam — expanded 1.2 percent in the third quarter.
The combined gross domestic product of newly industrialized nations Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan contracted slightly by 0.1 percent — a turnaround from the 6.3 percent contraction in the first quarter of this year.
“Emerging Asia is rebounding strongly and growth rates next year are likely to slightly outpace 2008 in most countries,” said Lee Jong-wha, the ADB’s chief economist.
Despite the recovery, Lee said it was essential that “fiscal and monetary stimulus remain accommodative where possible to put economies on a sound footing.”
“A key challenge for each economy will be to carefully time when best to roll back the stimulus to ensure sustained recovery but avoid both excessive inflation and hefty fiscal shortfalls,” he said.
The bank said it expects 45 developing countries from central Asia to the Pacific to grow by 4.5 percent this year and 6.6 percent next year — an increase from the 3.9 percent and 6.4 percent it forecast in September.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS