Publication: World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic
Update 2010, Volume 1 : Emerging Stronger from the Crisis
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2010
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2012-03-19
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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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“World Bank. 2010. World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic
Update 2010, Volume 1 : Emerging Stronger from the Crisis. World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic
Update ; 2010, Vol No. 1. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2455 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication World Bank East Asia and Pacific Economic Update 2011, Volume 1 : Securing the Present, Shaping the Future(Washington, DC, 2011-03)Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in East Asia has been moderating after a sharp rebound from the global crisis. The slowdown in growth since mid-2010, even though smaller than earlier projected, has occurred despite a stronger-than-expected recovery in high-income economies and only gradual withdrawal of the monetary and fiscal stimulus across the region. We project real GDP growth will settle to about 8 percent in 2011 and 2012 from about 9.6 percent in 2010. Inflation has become the key short-run challenge for the authorities in the region, complicated by a surge in portfolio capital inflows and rapidly increasing food and commodity prices that hit low-income households disproportionately. For many middle-income countries in East Asia, lowering inflation presents difficult policy choices. Most have eschewed the use of capital controls, and allowing exchange rates to appreciate may protect against importing inflation but jeopardizes international competitiveness. The sharp increase in commodity prices portends increased volatility for the foreseeable future. All commodity prices are on an upswing, some either at all-time highs or at levels exceeding those reached only two years ago. These latest price developments continue the trend that began earlier this decade of a steady climb in real commodity prices, interrupting a decade-long downward trend in the 1990s. Policies to provide incentives and ensure the investment needed to help develop new and greener energy sources, notably with low-carbon emissions and much improved energy efficiency should be a priority for governments in the region. Output growth throughout developing East Asia moderated in the second half of 2010 but was still surprisingly strong. This positive outcome reflected sustained monetary and fiscal stimulus measures and stronger growth in demand abroad, both of which partly offset the return of capacity utilization to pre-crisis levels. Real GDP growth in developing East Asia and Pacific amounted to 9.6 percent for 2010 as a whole 0.7 percentage points higher than our estimate in November 2010.Publication 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.Publication 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. 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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.Publication Sudden Stops : Are Global and Local Investors Alike?(2011-02-01)The main goal of this paper is to characterize the determinants of sudden stops caused by domestic vis-a-vis foreign residents. Are the decisions of domestic investors to invest abroad or of foreign investors to cut off funds from the domestic economy governed by the same set of determinants? Given the distribution of different types of sudden stop episodes over time and its different macroeconomic consequences, the authors argue that the determinants may not be alike. Using an effective sample of 82 countries with annual information over the period 1970-2007, the analysis finds that global investors are less likely to stop bringing their capital when their economy is growing and the world interest rate is lower. Domestic agents are more willing to invest abroad if the macroeconomic performance of the domestic economy is poor (high inflation), the financial system is weak, and there are high external savings (current account surpluses). Increasing financial openness makes the domestic country more vulnerable to sudden stops caused by either local or global investors. Finally, countries with higher shares of foreign direct investment are less prone to inflow-driven sudden stops, whereas the opposite holds for outflow-driven sudden stops.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2011(Washington, DC, 2011-01)Economic activity in most developing countries has, or is close to having, recovered. Supported by resurgence in international and domestic financial flows and higher commodity prices, most of the spare capacity in developing countries that was created by the crisis has been reabsorbed, and developing countries have regained trend growth rates close to those observed in the pre-crisis period. The remainder of this report is organized as follows. The next section discusses recent developments in global production, trade, and financial markets, and presents updates of the World Bank's forecast for the global economy and developing countries. The global economy is transitioning from the bounce-back phase of the recovery toward a period of slower but more sustainable growth. Growth in most developing countries is increasingly running into capacity constraints, while in high-income and developing Europe and Central Asia growth is hampered by the concentrated nature of slack and ongoing restructuring. In this environment, policy needs to be moving away from short-term demand stimulus toward measures that generate additional employment by enhancing the supply potential of economies. The global policy environment has become highly charged and uncertain, and presents multiple risks to prospects for developing countries. As emphasized at the recent G-20 meetings in Seoul (G-20 2010), both developing and high-income countries will need to take care to minimize the negative external consequences of their domestic policy actions. Concretely, this means that while countries must remain mindful of domestic conditions, when opportunities present themselves to pursue domestic policy objectives in a manner that support adjustment elsewhere in the global economy these should be taken up.
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