Vaccine impact, Korea’s third wave, climate change

The past week has brought more positive developments on the vaccine front, with the latest news from AstraZeneca and Pfizer providing a further boost to regional stock markets. However, the likely slow roll-out of vaccines across the region mean the boost to the economic recovery, at least in the near term, will be smaller than in developed countries. A jump in new cases of COVID-19 in Korea has prompted the authorities to reimpose new restrictions. Past experience suggests the economic impact of the “third wave” will be small and short-lived. Finally, we published a Focus earlier this week looking at the impact of climate change on emerging markets. One of the key findings was that countries in South and South East Asia would be among the most economically vulnerable to a further rise in global temperatures.