Asia Economics Focus A new angle on Chinese growth A little-noticed report published last week by the People’s Bank of China (PBC) gives arguably the best estimate yet of how much China’s economy slowed at the end of last year and how rapidly it has... 7th August 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus India set to come back strongly India’s 2008-09 slowdown seems to have been a short pause rather than anything more serious. The economy is picking up again and a long period of sustained high GDP growth looks likely. Current... 10th July 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Korean recovery to follow the West, not Asia While Korea is in much better shape to weather the 2008-09 global crisis than was the case during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, weak external demand and high domestic household indebtedness... 2nd July 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Can China grow by 8% this year? Signs of recovery in China have bolstered confidence that the economy can achieve or beat the government’s target of 8% GDP growth in 2009. But we suspect that China is growing more slowly than the... 6th May 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Whatever happened to Asian decoupling? It is not too late to rescue something from the decoupling story. The Asian economies – rather than the US or Europe – should recover quickest from the global recession. However, while Japan is likely... 5th May 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Surging bank loans not enough to save China China’s banks seem to be playing their part in financing the government’s stimulus plans. But the rest of the economic data is bleak. 12th February 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus The anatomy of the Great Depression of the 1930s There is still no universally accepted single cause of the Great Depression. But our analysis suggests that the main culprit for the role of catalyst was the bursting of the bubbles in the equity and... 19th January 2009 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Indian GDP growth set to halve as credit crunch bites The Indian economy is facing a severe credit crunch which will hit investment spending, the main driver of growth in recent years, extremely hard. We expect GDP growth to fall to around 4% next year... 17th December 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Is China running out of steam after 30 years of reform? Thirty years after the launch of reform in China, the experience of Japan and the Asian tigers underlines the need for China to shift its economic model if it is to sustain rapid growth over the... 24th November 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus China’s fiscal package may not be quite what it seems 10th November 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Is trouble lurking within Japan’s financial system? The Japanese financial system remains in relatively good shape. Despite the erosion of bank capital due to sliding stock markets, a number of factors suggest that there are no major risks to the... 6th November 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Bank of Korea to cut rates to a historic low of 1.5% High indebtedness, dysfunctional credit markets, and the prospect of a deep and prolonged global slowdown will drag Korea into its first recession since the Asian financial crisis of 1997. We expect... 31st October 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Japan heading for deflation again Inflation fears are rapidly being replaced by the very real chance of deflation in all the major economies. Indeed, we now expect Japanese inflation to turn negative again next year, averaging minus 0... 28th October 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus What’s really happening to Japanese wages? A closer look at different measures of wages growth in Japan shows that, contrary to most analysis, the economic recovery in recent years has not been a “wageless” phenomenon. Even continued modest... 23rd October 2008 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Focus Markets are wrong about the renminbi Markets appear to have all but given up on the idea that the renminbi will appreciate against the dollar over the next year. But we find nothing in the data on China’s real economy or in the outlook... 11th September 2008 · 1 min read
