World Bank signals Asian growth forecast downgrade
2012-10-05 17:05:03
The World Bank has signalled it may lower its economic forecasts for Asia next week as Europe's protracted sovereign-debt crisis, a faltering recovery in the United States and slowing Chinese growth crimp the region's prospects.
"In line with other people we are also looking at a downgrade of the forecast," Mr Bert Hofman, the Washington-based lender's Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, said in an interview in Singapore yesterday. The bank will publish a review of the region's developing economies on Oct 8.
In May, it said that growth in developing East Asia, which excludes Japan, will probably ease to 7.6 per cent this year from 8.2 per cent last year. Last November, the forecast for this year had been 7.8 per cent.
"We continue to see the headwinds from Europe and, to some extent, the United States, where the recovery is still not as buoyant as one would like," Mr Hofman said.
"We're signalling that we are also seeing a slowdown in the Asian economies."