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It is becoming clear that President Trump’s actions are driven by both his fixation on reducing the US trade deficit and his transactional approach to dealing with other countries. So, even though the Trump administration’s ideas to transform the entire …
25th March 2025
We expect Korea’s economy to grow by just 1.0% this year, with the political crisis and the downturn in the property sector set to weigh heavily on demand. Our forecast is well below both the consensus expectation and our estimate of trend growth. We …
19th February 2025
The Shape of the Fractured World in 2025 The share of the fracturing global economy that is accounted for by China and its geopolitical allies contracted in 2024, leaving it under a third the size of the US bloc at the start of 2025. This fall was in part …
17th January 2025
If Donald Trump were to impose a universal 10% tariff on US imports, we wouldn’t expect widespread reshoring of manufacturing production back to the US. And if it were accompanied by a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, the main beneficiaries would be other …
14th January 2025
Donald Trump’s second term could redraw the global geopolitical map. A sustainable “Grand Bargain” with China, warmer relations with Russia, or a breakdown in the relationship between the US and its traditional allies could each reshape supply chains and …
7th January 2025
We discussed the global impact of higher tariffs in a Drop-In on Tuesday, 26th November. Click here to watch the 20-minute online briefing. In this Focus, we construct a framework to explore the channels through which an import tariff works, which we use …
25th November 2024
Several EMs have reached provisional agreements with creditors to restructure their sovereign debts in recent months, including Zambia, Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Ghana. In principle, restructurings should pave the way for improved fiscal positions, stronger …
17th October 2024
The recent rise in public spending and fall in revenues has sent the Indonesian government’s budget deficit veering towards the constitutional 3% of GDP limit. And it’s unclear how the president-elect will be able to enact his ambitious welfare plans …
10th July 2024
This page brings together our analysis of how Donald Trump's return to the White House will affect the outlook for emerging economies. Use the Table of Contents on the right to navigate. All of our analysis on the election, including the implications for …
28th June 2024
Korea’s economy rebounded strongly last quarter but there are already signs it is losing momentum, and we expect growth to struggle over the coming year. Export growth is likely to ease a little, but the main drag will come from weaker domestic demand, …
18th June 2024
The recent weakness of wage growth in Korea seems at odds with the country’s low unemployment rate. But a closer look at the data suggests that the unemployment rate is overstating the health of the labour market and, on top of that, compositional changes …
4th June 2024
All the signs suggest that a second Trump administration would take a more protectionist approach to trade. Export demand in Mexico, East Asia and ASEAN would be particularly hard hit by a universal US import tariff or a dollar devaluation, and those …
29th April 2024
Taiwan will be one of the main beneficiaries of a lengthy global AI investment boom. We expect its economy to growth much faster over the rest of this decade than it did during the 2010s. It already appears that global excitement about the possibilities …
9th April 2024
We hosted an online briefing to discuss EM financial risks in more detail. Watch the recording here . Our risk indicators are presented as an interactive EM dashboard on our website here . The past few years have sharpened investors’ focus on assessing …
20th March 2024
Indonesia has some of the best long-term growth prospects of any economy. Key to whether it realises them is whether Indonesia maintains the progress President Joko Widodo (better known as Jokowi) has made on productivity-boosting structural reform. …
7th February 2024
The priority for whoever wins Pakistan’s general election on 8 th February will be to agree a new deal with the IMF, which should help put the struggling economy on a more stable footing. But thereafter the country’s dysfunctional political system will …
1st February 2024
During the past decade, the global economy has transitioned out of an era in which globalisation was the key driver of economic and financial relationships into one shaped by geopolitics. Previously, most governments had believed that closer economic …
16th November 2023
Note: We’ll be discussing the upcoming Thai general election and the country’s near to long-term economic risks in a 20-minute online briefing at 09:00 BST/16:00 SGT on 11th May. Register now. Provided Thailand’s general election on 14 th May does not set …
8th May 2023
The near-term economic outlook for Korea is very poor, with falling real incomes, problems in the housing market and weak global demand all set to weigh on prospects this year. Our forecast is that the economy will grow by a below-consensus and …
21st February 2023
Inflation looks to have peaked across Emerging Asia, and is likely to fall back more sharply than most analysts expect over the coming year as fuel price inflation drops, the disruption from the pandemic eases and economic growth slows. With inflation …
26th January 2023
China’s leadership has options other than invasion to coerce Taiwan to submit to its political control. The immediate economic and financial ramifications would differ in each case. But any scenario that upset the existing cross-Strait balance would come …
2nd August 2022
The Bank of Korea (BoK) is almost certain to hike interest rates further this year, but with financial risks receding, economic growth likely to slow and inflation set to fall back to target by early next year, we think financial markets and the consensus …
9th June 2022
Korea’s presidential election on 9 th March will have major implications for the country’s economic future. A pledge by the ruling DPK’s candidate to introduce a universal basic income could bring some important benefits. However, ensuring that it is both …
3rd March 2022
Inflation hasn’t emerged as a concern across Emerging Asia in the same way it has in the rest of the emerging world, in part because food price inflation in Asia is much lower, but also because the region has experienced much less disruption from the …
22nd November 2021
Korea has performed relatively well through the pandemic, and we expect the economy to emerge from the crisis with little lasting damage. However, the long-run outlook is less promising. Although productivity growth is likely to accelerate, it will not do …
17th August 2021
With the economy rebounding strongly from the crisis, the Bank of Korea (BoK) is starting to shift its attention away from supporting growth and towards containing financial risks. We expect the BoK to begin raising interest rates at its meeting in …
31st May 2021
Ongoing disruption to global auto production has highlighted the extent to which semiconductors have become an essential input in products that aren’t traditionally considered electronics and also how dependent the world is on Taiwan to produce them. This …
13th April 2021
The period covered by the new Five-Year Plan offers Vietnam an opportunity to establish itself as a major export manufacturing hub. Policy priorities will be to improve the business environment so as to nurture the private sector and to attract more …
1st February 2021
Our forecasts for GDP growth across emerging Asia in 2021 are much higher than consensus expectations across the board. Even so, in many places, output will still be below the pre-crisis level until the end of the year and it will remain well below its …
16th December 2020
Despite renewed concern from policymakers in Thailand over the appreciation of the Thai baht, we find little evidence that the rising currency is having a negative effect on the economy, and we don’t think it will be a major drag on the recovery. At its …
30th November 2020
It is by no means inevitable that the coronavirus crisis puts a big permanent hole in the supply capacity of economies (i.e. their ability to produce goods and services). With the right government policies, many economies should be able more or less to …
29th June 2020
The high-frequency data that we track suggest that while economic activity is picking up across most of the region, the pace of recovery varies significantly by country. We expect China, Singapore, Vietnam and Taiwan to bounce back quickest from the …
8th June 2020
There is a huge amount of uncertainty over how things will play out over the coming weeks as the coronavirus crisis continues to unfold, and any forecasts should be taken with more than the usual pinch of salt. We are pulling down our forecasts again for …
10th March 2020
The two key economic challenges facing Tsai Ing-wen in her second and final term as Taiwan’s president are the deteriorating demographic outlook and the long-term decline in productivity growth. A combination of the trade war, which is leading some …
13th January 2020
Growth in Emerging Asia has struggled over the past year. While most economies should stage a modest recovery over the coming quarters on the back of looser fiscal and monetary policy, with China likely to slow, aggregate growth in the region is set to …
19th December 2019
Indonesia’s GDP figures lack credibility – economic growth has been far too stable over the past few years to be believable. We think a better guide to the health of the economy is our own Indonesia Activity Tracker (IAT). This shows that economic growth …
11th November 2019
The two key economic challenges facing President Joko Widodo in his second term are boosting GDP growth and reducing Indonesia’s external vulnerabilities. We don’t think he will succeed in either. Following his decisive election victory in April, Joko …
15th October 2019
Weak economic growth and low inflation mean Emerging Asia’s rate cutting cycle has further to run. In contrast, the consensus and financial markets think the easing cycle will soon end in many countries. Having raised interest rates steadily throughout …
18th September 2019
Emerging Asia has not only been the fastest growing region since the global financial crisis, it has also been the most stable. Regional growth has also been less volatile compared with the period before the financial crisis. This “great moderation” is …
14th August 2019
The trade war between the US and China so far appears to have had a small negative impact on most of the region, although some countries, most notably Vietnam, look to be benefiting as US demand has shifted away from China towards alternative …
26th June 2019
With productivity slowing and working age populations set to start falling across most of Asia, we expect regional growth to slow to just 3.5% in a decade’s time. This compares with average growth of 6.0% over the past 10 years. Our forecasts are much …
12th June 2019
A hard landing in China’s economy is one of the biggest risks clouding the outlook for the rest of Emerging Asia. A slump in Chinese demand would hurt economies with close trade links to China, with commodity exporters likely to be especially hard-hit. A …
15th April 2014
Most of emerging Asia should continue to grow rapidly for at least another decade, and much longer if the right policy choices are made. The key exception is China where, despite a bright long-run outlook, structural reform is needed sooner rather than …
5th July 2011
Fiscal policy could make a significant contribution to reducing China’s massive current account surplus, though discussion of rebalancing often overlooks its potential. The government has the resources to increase spending or cut taxes now, but it is …
17th April 2008
