Asia Economics Update Philippines: Emergency rate cut unlikely to be the last The central bank in the Philippines (BSP) today cut its policy rate by 50bp at an emergence meeting, and with economic activity in the country collapsing, we doubt this will be the last move from the... 16th April 2020 · 3 mins read
Asia Economics Update Majority will boost Moon’s ability to enact reforms Adept handling of the current crisis has helped President Moon’s party to emerge from today’s National Assembly election with a majority, which should help breathe new life into his reform agenda... 15th April 2020 · 4 mins read
Asia Economics Update Korea: QE won’t negate need for more fiscal stimulus The Bank of Korea’ (BoK) left rates on hold at 0.75% today and announced plans to purchase government bonds. There is scope for quantitative easing to have an impact, but there are limits to how... 9th April 2020 · 3 mins read
Asia Economics Weekly Singapore shutdown, new forecasts, Korea elections Singapore today become the latest country in Asia to announce strict new social distancing rules to slow the spread of the coronavirus. We estimate that the economy will be running at around 30% below... 3rd April 2020 · 6 mins read
Asia Data Response Korea Trade (Mar.) Korean trade figures held up surprising well in March but given collapsing global demand this is unlikely to continue. We expect a sharp contraction in export values in the next few months. 1st April 2020 · 2 mins read
Asia Data Response Manufacturing PMIs (Mar.) The manufacturing PMIs for Asia suggest that industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus, and we suspect the readings will deteriorate much further in the next couple of months. 1st April 2020 · 2 mins read
Asia Economics Update Singapore: MAS reaching limits of monetary policy The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) loosened policy today by reducing the slope of its policy band, and even though the outlook for growth and inflation is very downbeat, we don’t expect further... 30th March 2020 · 3 mins read
Emerging Markets Economics Chart Pack First EM GDP contraction in post-war era The real-time economic and market disruption from the coronavirus means that much of the data released during the past month offers little insight into current developments in the emerging world... 27th March 2020 · 11 mins read
Asia Chart Pack Policy support being stepped up With economic growth across the region collapsing, policy support is being ramped up aggressively. Having slashed interest rates over the past couple of weeks, central banks have begun to unveil a... 26th March 2020 · 9 mins read
Asia Data Response Singapore GDP (Q1, Advanced) The sharp contraction in Singapore’s economy in Q1 was deeper than expected, and with global growth collapsing, the worst is yet to come. Given today’s outturn, we are lowering our 2020 GDP growth... 26th March 2020 · 3 mins read
Asia Data Response Korea Trade (1st – 20th Mar.) There are signs that trade has recovered somewhat from the shock of Chinese factory shutdowns, with both exports and imports bouncing back over the first 20 days of March. But with the world economy... 23rd March 2020 · 2 mins read
Asia Economics Update Philippines: more easing to come from the BSP The central bank in the Philippines is likely to ease further in the months ahead after opting to cut its main policy rate by 50bps today. The BSP has not yet introduced loan programmes or targeted... 19th March 2020 · 3 mins read
Asia Economics Update Bank of Korea’s next step likely to be QE The Bank of Korea today finally responded to the coronavirus outbreak by cutting the policy rate by 50bp and introducing a number of other measures to ease financing constraints. Further measures... 16th March 2020 · 3 mins read
Asia Economics Weekly Good news and bad news Despite the turmoil in regional financial markets over the past week, there has been some good news to report from Asia. New cases of the coronavirus in China have continued to fall sharply. There are... 13th March 2020 · 8 mins read
Asia Data Response Korea Trade (1st – 10th Mar.) Korean trade data for the first 10 days of March suggest that the disruption from factory closures in China to regional industry eased recently, although both imports and exports remain depressed. 11th March 2020 · 2 mins read
Asia Economics Update Malaysia: budget deficit to widen after oil price slump Malaysia’s new finance minister, Tengku Zafrul, faces the unenviable challenge of dealing with a rapidly deteriorating fiscal position at the same time as the economy is slowing sharply. While the... 10th March 2020 · 3 mins read
