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 capacity for at least the next month. In response, we now expect the economy to contract by 5% this year, down from -3.5% previously. Singapore is of course not the only place to have tightened restrictions recently, and with the outlook for global demand also worsening, we are cutting our forecasts for other countries as well. Our assessment is that Thailand and Hong Kong will be the worst-affected countries this year. Only Vietnam and India will grow at all.