East Asia and Pacific Update, April 2008 : East Asia - Testing Times Ahead
Last year Developing East Asia recorded its highest growth rate in over a decade (10.2 percent), capping a decade of improvements following its home-grown financial crisis in 1998. Yet this is hardly a time for celebration, but rather one for conce...
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| Format: | Serial |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/914941468234279719/East-Asia-Testing-times-ahead http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33511 |
| Summary: | Last year Developing East Asia recorded
its highest growth rate in over a decade (10.2 percent),
capping a decade of improvements following its home-grown
financial crisis in 1998. Yet this is hardly a time for
celebration, but rather one for concern. The global economy
is once again facing a testing time, with soaring fuel and
food prices, on the one hand, and, on the other, an
unfolding sub-prime crisis emanating in the United States
and spreading to other countries and asset classes, bringing
in its wake a plunging dollar and a slowdown in global trade
and growth. Despite falling growth in exports to the US,
rising volatility in global financial markets, high and
volatile international commodity prices, and an increasingly
clouded outlook for the world economy, economic activity in
most East Asian economies continued at strong rates through
the end of 2007 and into early 2008. Fortunately, the
countries of East Asia are generally better prepared than
ever to deal with the vicissitudes of the global economy in
this more uncertain time. Reflecting lessons learned from
the East Asian financial crisis of a decade ago, today most
economies in the region have strong external payments
positions and large international reserves, prudent fiscal
and monetary policies, better regulated banking systems, and
profitable and competitive corporations. East Asia's
trade and financial relations with the rest of the world
have become steadily more diverse. The region is becoming
more of a growth pole in the world economy, proving to be a
force for stability at a time when the industrial economies
are slowing. |
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