Asia and Pacific
2024
April 29, 2024
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific
Description:
Growth in Asia and the Pacific outperformed expectations in late 2023, reaching 5.0 percent for the year. Inflation has continued to decline, albeit at varying speeds: some economies are still seeing sustained price pressures, while others are facing deflationary risks.In 2024, growth is projected to slow modestly to 4.5 percent. Near-term risks are now broadly balanced, as global disinflation and the prospect of monetary easing have increased the likelihood of a soft landing. Spillovers from a deeper property sector correction in China remain an important risk, however, while geoeconomic fragmentation clouds medium-term prospects. Given the diverse inflation landscape, central bank policies need to calibrate policies carefully to domestic needs. Fiscal consolidation should accelerate to contain debt burdens and debt service cost, in order to preserve budgetary space for addressing structural challenges, including population aging and climate change.
2023
October 13, 2023
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific, October 2023
Description:
Challenges to Sustaining Growth and Disinflation
The Asia-Pacific region remains a key driver of global growth in 2023, despite facing headwinds from changing global demand from goods to services and tighter monetary policies. The region is expected to grow by 4.6 percent in 2023, up from 3.9 percent in 2022. However, growth is projected to slow to 4.2 percent in 2024 and 3.9 percent in the medium term, as China's structural slowdown (Chapter 3 explains) and lower productivity growth in many other economies dampen the region's potential. Inflation is expected to decline in 2024 and stay within central bank target ranges in most countries, a faster pace of disinflation than in other regions (Chapter 2 explains.) Risks to the outlook have become more balanced than they were six months ago, although they still lean to the downside.
May 1, 2023
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific May 2023
Description: Despite weakening external demand and monetary tightening, domestic demand has so far remained strong, with China’s reopening providing fresh impetus. IMF Asia and the Pacific remains a dynamic region despite the somber backdrop of what looks to be shaping up as a challenging year for the world economy. Global growth is poised to decelerate as rising interest rates and Russia’s war in Ukraine weigh on activity. Inflation remains stubbornly high, and banking strains in the United States and Europe have injected greater uncertainty into an already complex economic landscape. Asia’s domestic demand has so far remained strong despite monetary tightening, while external appetite for technology products and other exports is weakening. We project the region will contribute around 70 percent of global growth this year as its expansion accelerates to 4.6 percent from 3.8 percent in last year. China’s reopening will provide fresh momentum. Normally the strongest effect would be from demand for investment goods in China, but this time the biggest effect is from demand for consumption. Other emerging economies in the region are on track to enjoy solid growth, though in some cases at slightly lower rates than seen last year.
2022
October 27, 2022
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific, October 2022
Description: After the strong rebound of 6.5 percent posted in 2021, growth in Asia and Pacific is expected to moderate to 4.0 percent in 2022 amid an uncertain global environment and rise to 4.3 percent in 2023. Inflation has risen above most central bank targets, but is expected to peak in late 2022. As the effects of the pandemic wane, the region faces new headwinds from global financial tightening and an expected slowdown of external demand. While Asia remains a relative bright spot in an increasingly lethargic global economy, it is expected to expand at a rate that is well below the average rate of 5½ percent seen over the preceding two decades.
April 21, 2022
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific, April 2022
Description: Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific, April 2022
2021
October 19, 2021
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific, October 2021
Description:
The Asian outlook for 2021 has been downgraded by more than 1 percent to 6.5 percent compared with the April 2021 World Economic Outlook because of new peaks of the pandemic cycle driven by the highly contagious Delta variant. As vaccination rates accelerate, the region is expected to grow slightly faster in 2022 than anticipated earlier. Although Asia and Pacific remains the fastest growing region in the world, the divergence between Asian advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies is deepening, reflecting vaccination coverage and policy support, and medium-term output levels in emerging market and developing economies are expected to remain below pre-pandemic trends. Risks are tilted to the downside, mainly because of uncertain pandemic dynamics, vaccine efficacy against virus variants, supply chain disruptions, and potential global financial spillovers from US monetary normalization in the presence of domestic financial vulnerabilities.
April 13, 2021
Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific
Description: The Asian economic recovery stands out because of prompt and effective policies during pandemic’s acute phase. The next phase is even more challenging: to lay the foundation for a more inclusive, greener, and resilient region.
2020
October 21, 2020
Navigating the Pandemic: A Multispeed Recovery in Asia
Description: Asia-Pacific has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and is recovering from a severe recession. The outlook varies by country depending on infection rates and containment measures, policy responses, reliance on contact-intensive activities, and external demand. Output is expected to remain below pre-pandemic trends over the medium term, with the most vulnerable in society likely to be hit the hardest. The projections remain highly uncertain, with significant downside risks.
2019
October 22, 2019
Asia and Pacific Regional Economic Outlook: Caught in Prolonged Uncertainty
Description: Headwinds from prolonged global policy uncertainty, distortionary trade measures, and growth deceleration in the economies of important trading partners are influencing economic growth in Asia and the Pacific. Although the region is still the world’s fastest growing major region, contributing more than two-thirds to global growth, near-term prospects have deteriorated noticeably since the April 2019 World Economic Outlook, with risks skewed to the downside.
2018
October 11, 2018
Regional Economic Outlook: Asia Pacific
Description:
Asia has achieved remarkable economic success over the past five decades. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, and successive waves of economies have made the transition to middle-income and even advanced-economy status. And whereas the region used to be almost entirely dependent on foreign know-how, several of its economies are now on the cutting edge of technological advance. Even more striking, all of this has happened within just a couple of generations, the product of a winning mix of integration with the global economy via trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), high savings rates, large investments in human and physical capital, and sound macroeconomic policies.