Published in ASEAN News on 13.05.2020

ASEAN News: Recovery outlook for Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore

The global pandemic is currently still ongoing. In Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in the ASEAN region, however, the number of cases is already declining. This allows the possibility for an economic outlook.

Singapore has with almost 25000 cases much more than Thailand and Malaysia, but the death figures are with 21 very low. In comparison with other countries, especially from the western world, all three countries perform well so far and have been able to minimize the health consequences of the pandemic to a large extent.

Economical Outlook

In a further step, it is now important to look at the economic impact and to explain the developments at an early stage.
As early as April 2020, the ADB published a report on the Development Outlook for the region, which highlights the effects of the measures introduced in response to the corona crisis.
The report shows that the entire region is coming under economic pressure and that growth in the current year will be lower than in the previous year.

A report from Morgan Stanley about the recovery from the crisis analyses and forecasts how quickly the individual economies will recover.

"As for the rest of Asia, excluding Japan, China is likely to be the first to return to pre-Covid-19 levels of economic growth by the third quarter of 2020"

The analysis is based on three factors: how exposed each economy is to the global recession, the institutional response to handle the Covid-19 situation and the consequences on domestic demand, and the room and willingness to undertake policy easing.

"Lower exposure to global recession impact and relatively high structural growth is why we expect them to return to pre-Covid-19 levels next after China"

Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, if government measures to control the outbreak are reduced, could be the first countries after China to get their economies back on track. The report from Morgan Stanley states that it could happen in the first quarter of 2021.
Overall Morgan Stanley is expecting a gradual rather than V-shaped recovery, likely in the second half of this year.