World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update
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The World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update is the World Bank's comprehensive, twice-yearly review of the region's economies prepared by the East Asia and Pacific regional unit of the World Bank.
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Publication
World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update - Spring 2022
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-04)Amidst a fragile recovery, three clouds are gathering over the economic horizon: US inflation could provoke financial tightening, China’s structural slowdown and zero-COVID-19 policy could dampen regional exports, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could disrupt food and fuel supplies, spook financial markets, and undermine business confidence. Counterposed against these risks, are three opportunities. First, shifts in the patterns of comparative advantage are creating new niches in both goods and services trade. Second, the diffusion of technologies could boost productivity. Finally, new green technologies could allow countries to cut carbon emissions without unacceptable cuts in consumption or growth. Accordingly, policy action must help countries to both affect the risk and grasp the opportunities. We begin by addressing three proximate questions: What is happening to the economies? Why? And what can we expect? We then discuss the policy options that can help East Asia and Pacific economies weather the shocks and ensure sustainable growth. -
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World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update 2010, Volume 1 : Emerging Stronger from the Crisis
(World Bank, 2010)East Asia has recovered from the economic and financial crisis. Largely thanks to China, the region's output, exports and employment have mostly returned to the levels before the crisis. Leading the global economy, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in developing East Asia is poised to rise to 8.7 percent in 2010 after slowing from 8.5 percent in 2008 to 7.0 percent in 2009. This report also identifies two common regional agenda items for the medium term. First, the process of regional integration, driven by Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) commitments to creating a single economic area, will need to continue. Deeper regional economic integration is now even more important, given prospects for slower growth in advanced economies. Behind-the-border trade barriers must be lowered, even in the face of incipient protectionist pressures around the world, including in the region. Deeper integration will encourage agglomeration economies and intra-industry trade, support sustainable urbanization, lower costs, and increase international competitiveness. Second, addressing climate change is high priority in the region. Mitigation measures must be strengthened to improve land and water use, bolster energy efficiency and conservation, and foster a much larger role for renewable sources of energy. Moreover, with investment rates in the region higher than in developed countries, there is scope for East Asia to move rapidly to the "green" technology frontier. Such a move will give the region a competitive advantage in a sector poised for rapid global growth. At the same time, the adaptation agenda will require enhancing the region's cooperation and disaster risk management frameworks. Institutional and regulatory frameworks for improving the resiliency of economic activity, reducing drought and flood risk, and managing coastal areas and small islands, are critically needed. -
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East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, November 2009 : Transforming the Rebound into Recovery
(World Bank, 2010)A vigorous economic rebound is under way in East Asia since the second quarter of 2009, following the sharp impact from the financial crisis and the global recession that began in late 2008. As much as the reduction in exports and industrial production across the region in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 was unexpectedly swift and deep, so is the strength of the rebound, with doubts about green shoots dispelled in a matter of months and replaced by near-consensus views of a synchronized global rebound led by emerging East Asia. The robust rebound is due to a combination of timely and large fiscal and monetary stimulus in most countries in East Asia, notably in China, and a powerful process of inventory restocking that began after mid-2009. Globally, the advanced economies joined the rebound trend in the third quarter of 2009, and their contributions to global industrial production notably driven by inventory accumulation have begun to outpace the contribution from the East Asia region. These developments are set against a background of solid macroeconomic fundamentals, including high foreign exchange reserves, large private and corporate savings, and low corporate and government debt. The region's well-capitalized banks and much improved banking supervision since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis have also helped limit financial contagion and the transmission of the forces of global recession. -
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World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update 2010, Volume 2 : Robust Recovery, Rising Risks
(World Bank, 2010)Output has recovered to above pre-crisis levels throughout developing East Asia and, in some countries, is expanding at near pre-crisis rates. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is likely to rise 8.9 percent in the region in 2010, up from 7.3 percent in 2009 and in line with the average growth rate during 2000-08. Economic expansion is projected to slow to about 7.8 percent in 2011, as spare capacity becomes scarce, fiscal and monetary stimulus measures are gradually unwound, and economic growth in the advanced economies remains relatively flat. Encouragingly, the private sector is once again becoming the engine of growth, confidence is returning, and trade flows have returned to pre-crisis levels. But the recovery so far has generated little incremental manufacturing employment in some of the middle-income countries. With output gaps closing rapidly and private investment recovering strongly, the authorities in most East Asian countries are unwinding their stimulus measures. Finally, a more consistent application of policy incentives for investment and growth across space is called for, especially recognizing China's unique combination of fiscal decentralization and centralized government structure. Extending preferential policies related to taxation and deregulation further inland, broadening the access to credit, and standardizing basic health and education services across provinces will greatly level the playing field in favor of the inland provinces, improving both equity and growth. -
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East Asia and Pacific Update, December 2008: East Asia - Navigating the Perfect Storm
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12)As the global economy finds itself in the worst financial crisis since the great depression, the East Asia and Pacific region has not been spared the full fury of the economic storm. The surge and subsequent drop in food and fuel prices was followed by the intensification in the financial crisis that began in mid- 2007 in the U.S., deepened through the first half of 2008, and took a sharp turn for the worse after September 15. Even as East Asian policymakers were battling the previous crisis in late 2007 and early 2008 - the rise in inflation following the steep increases in food and fuel prices they were confronted by sudden falls in equity prices and exchange rates, sharp increases in short-term interest rates, and an abrupt deceleration in export growth. The epicenter of the storm was in the developed countries, but its reach spread quickly across the globe. The failure of important financial institutions in the major financial systems froze interbank and credit markets around the world and revised the price of risk upward, triggering a global liquidity shortage. The ensuing search for liquidity worldwide prompted, among other things, the sale of equity and debt securities and the withdrawal of capital from emerging markets, destabilizing banking systems far from the center of the crisis. Boosts to liquidity and injections of capital in financial institutions by developed country authorities may avert a systemic meltdown of financial markets, but heightened risk aversion and an ongoing deleveraging across the world is causing capital to retreat from developing countries and the cost of financing to rise. The loss of trust, breakdown in financial markets, and curtailment of bank loans have hit investment, production, and trade, causing global growth to slow rapidly. Japan and Europe are already in recession, and the US is expected to follow soon. All three are expected to contract further in 2009, dampening import demand and resulting in the first decline in world trade volumes in a quarter century. -
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East Asia and Pacific Update, April 2008: East Asia - Testing Times Ahead
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-04)Last year Developing East Asia recorded its highest growth rate in over a decade (10.2 percent), capping a decade of improvements following its home-grown financial crisis in 1998. Yet this is hardly a time for celebration, but rather one for concern. The global economy is once again facing a testing time, with soaring fuel and food prices, on the one hand, and, on the other, an unfolding sub-prime crisis emanating in the United States and spreading to other countries and asset classes, bringing in its wake a plunging dollar and a slowdown in global trade and growth. Despite falling growth in exports to the US, rising volatility in global financial markets, high and volatile international commodity prices, and an increasingly clouded outlook for the world economy, economic activity in most East Asian economies continued at strong rates through the end of 2007 and into early 2008. Fortunately, the countries of East Asia are generally better prepared than ever to deal with the vicissitudes of the global economy in this more uncertain time. Reflecting lessons learned from the East Asian financial crisis of a decade ago, today most economies in the region have strong external payments positions and large international reserves, prudent fiscal and monetary policies, better regulated banking systems, and profitable and competitive corporations. East Asia's trade and financial relations with the rest of the world have become steadily more diverse. The region is becoming more of a growth pole in the world economy, proving to be a force for stability at a time when the industrial economies are slowing. -
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East Asia and Pacific Update, November 2007: Will Resilience Overcome Risk?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11)Growth in Emerging East Asia is expected to exceed 8 percent in 2007 for a second year in succession and to moderate only slightly in 2008. Our projections for regional growth in 2007 and 2008 have been substantially increased compared to six months ago, mainly due to the unexpected and large domestic demand-led acceleration of growth in China. Growth also picked up in most of the other larger economies of the region, again a result of more buoyant investment and consumption spending. Concerns about the impact of the US sub-prime crisis and the renewed surge in oil prices have clearly increased downside risks. Nevertheless we expect that the stronger growth momentum in the region will carry through 2008. There are as yet few signs of a significant pick-up in underlying core inflation pressures or of other domestic constraints or imbalances that would require a marked slowing of growth. -
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East Asia and Pacific Update, April 2007: Ten Years After the Crisis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-04)Growth in Emerging East Asia accelerated to reach 8.1 percent in 2006. This was the strongest pace of economic expansion in the last ten years and a fitting commemoration of the decade that has passed since the start of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The region's accomplishments in grappling with and overcoming the crisis and in returning to solid growth are varied and impressive -- a doubling in the dollar value of regional output from pre-crisis levels, the emergence of China into the front rank of global economic powers, a halving in poverty rates, accumulation of over 2 trillion dollars in foreign reserves. But even as the region celebrates recovery, new challenges are arising, which could slow or even derail growth if not properly handled. The report looks at these issues in a section on Ten years after the crisis. Another challenge of staggering proportions that lies ahead is East Asian urbanization: The region's population will rise by around 17 percent between 2000 and 2025 but its urban population will jump by 65 percent or 500 million. The Special Focus in this report on Sustainable Development in East Asia's Urban Fringe looks at the issues. -
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East Asia Update, November 2006: Managing Through a Global Downturn
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11)Growth in Emerging East Asia is expected to reach close to 8 percent in 2006, the second strongest pace in the five year long economic expansion underway in the region since 2001. Emerging East Asia comprises Developing East Asia (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and some smaller economies) and four Newly Industrialized Economies or NIEs (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, China). The rest of this summary provides further information on the main cross-country trends and policy issues discussed in this report. Developments at the country level are discussed in the Country Sections at the back of the report, while fuller Country Briefs are available at the website associated with this report. The Special Focus in this report is on Investing in Young People in East Asia and the Pacific, a study of the lessons for East Asia from the World Bank's recent World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generation. -
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East Asia Update, March 2006: Solid Growth, New Challenges
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-03)The report stipulates growth in Emerging East Asian countries eased modestly from 7.5 percent in 2004 to 6.8 percent in 2005. The slower pace of activity was most clear in the Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs), and in some of the middle income economies of South East Asia. But it was not universal. Growth accelerated in Indonesia and Vietnam, and continued at very high rates in China. In addition, while the moderation in activity in the NIEs and South East Asia occurred in the first part of 2005, activity was generally rebounding in the latter part of the year. Indeed growth for 2005 as a whole, generally turned out higher than we had expected six months ago. The prospects for 2006 also look reasonably firm, with aggregate regional growth expected to exceed 6.5 percent for a third year in a row. Global high tech demand slowed in late 2004 and early 2005, causing a downturn in tech-reliant East Asian export growth, but then rebounded strongly in the second half of the year. High oil prices clearly played a large role in moderating growth in 2005. While the report assumes that oil prices have now peaked, they are still expected to average 10 percent higher in 2006 than in 2005, so that some of the adverse impact is still likely to be playing out in 2006. Nevertheless, the real surprise has been that the highest real oil prices in more than 25 years did not inflict more serious economic damage, with growth not falling below 4 percent in any of the main economies of the region.