A view of Hai Phong Port in northern Vietnam (Photo: VNA) In its quarterlyupdate of the ASEAN+3 Regional Economic Outlook released on January 25, AMRO maintainsa positive outlook on ASEAN+3 economies (comprised of the 10 ASEAN countries plus China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan) for this year, with regional GDP growth of4.9 percent, lower than the projection of 5 percent in the October update. Meanwhile,inflation will be kept relatively low at 2.9 percent for 2022.
The thinktank pointed out that the emergence ofthe Omicron variant towards the end of 2021 brought new uncertainties and set backthe progress of economic reopening. Nevertheless, high vaccination coverage hasmitigated the risk of nationwide lockdowns, as experienced during the earlydays of the pandemic.
“The ASEAN+3 region has sufficient policy spaceto navigate through these new challenges, and stay on its recovery path,” saidAMRO’s Chief Economist, Dr. Hoe Ee Khor.
The2022 growth forecasts for most ASEAN economies have been revised downward asthe spread of the highly transmissible Omicron at the beginning of theyear necessitated the re-imposition of containment measures.
Meanwhile,AMRO estimated the 2021 economic growth in the ASEAN+3 region at 5.9 percent,down by 0.2 percentage point from last October’s forecast. The revision wasdriven by weaker-than-expected growth in Japan, where economic activity in thethird quarter was significantly curtailed with the resurgence of infectionsacross the country, and in China, due to the softening of the property marketas a result of stricter measures on leverage of property developers./.
VNA
