Asia Consensus Survey JCER/Nikkei Consensus Survey on Asian Economies （June 2022 issue /2022～2024）

Fed Shock to Prompt Asia Slowdown in 2H 2022

Inflation, Weak Currencies Push Central Banks to Raise Rates

Project Leader：Masashi UEHARA: Principal Economist
Project Leader：Kenji YUASA: Lead Economist

2022/07/04

The spread of COVID-19 infection—particularly the omicron variant—seems to have slowed, and Asian countries have begun to reopen their economies. But a big rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve has chilled expectations for economic recovery. Inflation caused by the prolonged Ukraine war is another blow to economic growth. With inflation forecasted to accelerate and currencies expected to depreciate, each country will follow the Fed in raising policy interest rates. The economic growth rates of each country are expected to peak in the middle of 2022 and enter a deceleration from the latter half of the year, with a marked slowdown trend toward 2023.

The Japan Center for Economic Research and Nikkei conducted the twenty-sixth quarterly consensus survey on Asian economies from June 3 to June 23, asking about the economic outlook for 2022-2024. It collected 36 answers from economists and analysts in the five largest members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—and in India.

Economists’ average forecast of the economic growth rate of the five ASEAN countries in 2022 is 5.0%, up 0.1 point from the previous survey in March (Table 1). Although the annual forecast for ASEAN has been revised slightly upward, on a quarterly basis projections have been lowered from the third quarter of 2022 in all five countries. The ASEAN growth rate is expected to slow down after peaking at 5.4% in the third quarter and fall to 4.8% in 2023, a downward revision of 0.1 point from the previous survey.

The outcome of this survey was also reported at Nikkei Asia. (July 4, 2022)

PDFConsensus June 2022 Survey Full Text

AsiaSurvey202010-table-ENG

◆ Main points of the survey

The average 2022 growth rate forecast of five ASEAN countries is 5.0%, up 0.1 point from the previous survey in March. On a quarterly basis, the forecast has been revised downward from the third quarter of 2022 in all five countries. The ASEAN growth rate is expected to slow after a third quarter peak, and then to fall in 2023. India’s growth rate in 2022 will be 7.2%, revised downward by 0.6 points.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s “historic” 0.75-point interest rate hike on June 15 casts a long shadow on the Asian economy. The Fed has also significantly lowered its 2022 U.S. economic growth forecast from the 2.8% projected in March to 1.7%. Export-oriented countries in Asia will be greatly affected by the slowdown in U.S. growth.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to soaring prices of crude oil, natural gas, and food. Economists have revised their CPI forecasts upwards and expect inflation to accelerate in 2022. Most central banks in Asian countries are moving to raise policy interest rates and change their accommodative monetary policies. India has taken the lead, followed by Malaysia and the Philippines.

◆ List of survey respondents

Indonesia: Dendi Ramdani, head of industry and regional research department, Bank Mandiri; Umar Juoro, senior fellow, The Habibie Center; Wisnu Wardana, economist, PT Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk.; Juniman, chief economist, Maybank Indonesia

Malaysia: Suhaimi Ilias, chief economist, Maybank Investment Banking Group; Wan Suhaimie bin Wan Mohd Saidie, head, economic research, Kenanga Investment Bank; Vincent Loo Yeong Hong, senior economist, KAF Research; Lee Heng Guie, executive director, Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC)

Philippines: Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist, BDO Unibank Inc.; Samantha Teng, research and business analytics, Metrobank; Carlo Asuncion, chief economist, Union Bank of the Philippines

Singapore: Manu Bhaskaran, CEO, Centennial Asia Advisors; Randolph Tan, director, Centre for Applied Research, Singapore University of Social Sciences

Thailand: Poonyawat Sreesing, senior economist, Siam Commercial Bank – Economic Intelligence Center; Lalita Thienprasiddhi, senior resercher, Kasikorn Research Center; Krungsri Research Team, Bank of Ayudhya PCL

India: Punit Srivastava, head of research, Daiwa Capital Markets India; Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist, CRISIL; Anshuman Khanna, assistant secretary general, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI; Tirthankar Patnaik, chief economist, National Stock Exchange of India; Bidisha Ganguly, chief economist, Confederation of Indian Industry; Aurodeep Nandi, India economist, Nomura India

For multiple countries: Euben Paracuelles, chief economist, Nomura Singapore; Nicholas Mapa, senior economist, ING Bank Philippines; Brian Tan, Regional economist, VP, Barclays Bank, Singapore; Shreya Sodhani, regional economist, Barclays Bank, Singapore; Rahul Bajoria, director, regional economist, Barclays Bank

2023/07/03