World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14469

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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World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, April 2018: Enhancing Potential

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-04-11) World Bank

Developing EAP grew slightly faster than anticipated in 2017. The growth of regional GDP excluding China is forecast to remain stable in 2018, while China's GDP growth is expected to moderate as the economy keeps rebalancing. Major downside risks include volatility associated with faster than expected monetary policy tightening in advanced economies and a rising threat of trade restrictions. Developing EAP countries would need to get ready to respond to increasing interest rates and find ways to raise potential growth in the medium run. Specifically, amid the rising risk of protectionism and changes in the global manufacturing landscape, countries should continue to enhance trade facilitation and integration, increase the effectiveness of schools and education systems, and upgrade capabilities to ensure that workers and managers have necessary skills. To provide economic security to the population, policies should focus on strengthening social assistance and insurance programs, and increasing resilience to systemic shocks.
East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, April 2017: Sustaining Resilience

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-04-13) World Bank

The region's growth outlook for 2017-19 remains broadly positive. China's growth moderation and rebalancing are expected to continue. In the region's other large developing economies, growth is projected to pick up slightly. Poverty has continued to decline in most countries and is projected to fall further. Global and regional vulnerabilities place a premium on macroeconomic prudence. Mobilizing additional revenues will create space for measures to support growth and foster inclusion. Some smaller commodity-exporting economies need to focus on lowering threats to fiscal solvency. Much of the region may need to adjust accommodative monetary policies. In China, reforms of the corporate sector, including restructuring of SOEs, and measures to bring credit growth under control are critical to reducing vulnerabilities. Elsewhere in the region, improvements in financial supervision and prudential regulation will be required. Developing EAP economies could benefit significantly from improving the quality of public spending, deepening regional integration, and reducing the agricultural sector's increasingly adverse environmental footprint.
World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, October 2013 : Rebuilding Policy Buffers, Reinvigorating Growth

(Washington, DC, 2013-10-31) World Bank

Global growth momentum accelerated during the second and third quarters of 2013, while many downside risks lingered in the background. Strengthening of global growth momentum will help developing East Asia maintain a growth rate in excess of 7 percent, retaining its status as the global growth leader. Domestic demand, which has been the main driver of growth in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region in the post-global financial crisis period, is slowing. The decision by the United States (U.S.) Federal Reserve (Fed) to delay tapering of quantitative easing (QE) has restored capital flows to emerging markets, giving the authorities a second opportunity to take measures to lower risks from future volatility. As the global growth cycle undergoes change, adjustments to fiscal and monetary policy are warranted in many EAP countries. With growth running at or above potential for most countries in the region, progress at upgrading growth and reducing poverty depends crucially on structural reforms. While the balance of risks to base case regional forecast lies on the downside, several upside risks have recently emerged. The three immediate headline risks include a less orderly tapering of the U.S.'s unconventional monetary policies, prolonged fiscal deadlock in the U.S., and a sharper than expected slowdown of the Chinese economy. In this context, the report is divided into following three parts: part one is recent developments and outlook; part two is selected emerging issues; and part three is the medium-term development agenda.
East Asia and Pacific Update, December 2008: East Asia - Navigating the Perfect Storm

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12) World Bank

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.
East Asia and Pacific Update, November 2007: Will Resilience Overcome Risk?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11) World Bank

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.
East Asia and Pacific Update, April 2007: Ten Years After the Crisis

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-04) World Bank

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.
East Asia Update, November 2006: Managing Through a Global Downturn

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11) World Bank

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.
East Asia Update, March 2006: Solid Growth, New Challenges

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-03) World Bank

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.
East Asia Update, April 2005: East Asia's Dollar Influx - Signal for Change

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-04) World Bank

Economic growth in Emerging East Asia reached a cyclical peak of 7.2 percent in 2004 from which it is expected to slow only moderately to about 6 percent in 2005 and 2006. The tragic tsunami disaster, while it had a horrendous impact in terms of loss of life, is expected to have only a limited impact on overall economic growth in the two most seriously affected East Asian economies, Indonesia and Thailand. Among the developing economies in the region growth is expected to ease from over 8 percent - the highest since before the financial crisis - to around 7 percent in the coming period.
East Asia Update, November 2004: Steering a Steady Course

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-11) World Bank

This report discusses the number of cross-currents and risks within and without the East Asia region. One of the concerns discussed is the steep spike in world oil prices, which will reduce incomes among the majority of economies in the region that are net energy importers, as well as among the developed nations which comprise Emerging East Asias major extra-regional export markets - the United States, Japan and Europe. The report also reviews the affects of oil prices, as well as a variety of domestic factors and the fact that growth in the developed world shifted to a lower pace in the second quarter of 2004, most notably in Japan and to a lesser extent in the U.S., while monthly indicators suggested softening activity in Europe in the third quarter. Also discussed is the growth pause in the developed world and the likelihood of another cyclical downturn in the global high tech industry, a concern for East Asia which is now the leading location for manufacturing and assembly in this industry. The study notes that East Asian decision makers are also giving much attention to the outlook for China.