Asia: Growth forecasts downgraded – ABN AMRO

Arjen van Dijkhuizen, senior economist at ABN AMRO, suggests that they have recently adopted a more negative view on trade tensions and the impact thereof on the global economy and as a result, they have lowered their growth forecasts for a wide range of advanced and emerging economies, while expecting a global easing cycle to cushion the blow.

Key Quotes

“We have also cut our growth forecasts for export-oriented emerging Asia, as the (re)escalation of the US-China trade/tech conflict has left its mark on regional supply chains (US-China trade has collapsed in recent months), on business confidence and on financial conditions, while external demand has softened.”

“We cut our growth forecasts for China only modestly (for 2019 from 6.3% to 6.2% and for 2020 from 6.0% to 5.8%), as we expect more policy support to offset the larger drag from the trade conflict. That said, these revisions should be taken in the context of the relative stability of the official growth figures, whereas we expect more weakness in trade and manufacturing.”

“For the majority of the other EM Asian countries, we cut our 2019-20 growth forecasts by around 0.5 ppt. As a result, we now expect regional growth to slow from 6.1% in 2018 to 5.7% (down from 5.9%) in 2019 and to 5.5% (down from 5.8%) in 2020.”