Will the economic woes in the West take its toll on Asia?

Singapore’s volatile economy made its growth rate decelerate abruptly year-on-year between Q1 and Q2.

According to Standard Chartered, in East Asia, recent months have highlighted the need to differentiate between economies driven by domestic demand, which look more resilient, and the more open economies whose growth rates are more volatile.

Here’s more from Standard Chartered:

Of the countries that have reported Q2 GDP growth, China and Indonesia saw a limited slowdown on a year-on-year basis, which is still the way data across Asia is assessed, although it can lead to big swings in figures and sometimes in sentiment. Meanwhile, the South Korean, Malaysian, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Singaporean economic growth rates all decelerated year-on-year between Q1 and Q2.

Singapore's deceleration was particularly abrupt, reflecting both the openness of its economy and of its manufacturing industry. Overall, recent performance has been in line with our view of a soft patch in Q2 established since the start of the year.

Some economies have a decent seasonal adjustment of their data and of these, Indonesia actually accelerated in Q2 (2.9 in Q2 versus 1.5 in Q1), while China was steady (2.2 in Q2 versus 2.1 in Q1) while Malaysia decelerated (2.4 in Q2 v 7.6 in Q1). In contrast, Hong Kong and Singapore, the two most open economies in the region, contracted in Q2.

The diversification in the region is two-fold. One is the shift in trade flows that has been evident for some time. We have referred to this as New Trade Corridors for the last seven years or so, reflecting the increase in ‘south-south’ trade, as flows of commodities, goods, remittances, and portfolio and direct investment have picked-up.

The other is the stronger performance of domestic demand. For H2-2011, growth in South Korea has been 3.75%. Of this, private consumption has been 1.57%, government spending 0.27%, investment has subtracted 0.58% and net trade has added 2.47% (with exports a positive of 6.38% and imports a negative of 3.91%). Adding up all the components gives the overall growth picture.

Based on this, one can see the extent to which private consumption has been a mainstay of growth across much of East Asia during H1-2011. Last year, private consumption, too, was strong, but the big delta for the rapid growth in some of the more open economies was a surge in exports, which naturally is hard to sustain in growth terms this year.

You're the reader we write for. You're also the person our partners want to reach.

If that sentence describes you — a founder, a C-suite, someone whose attention companies pay good money for — then you already understand why SBR works. We've spent twenty years earning the trust of readers exactly like you. Which is exactly what makes this an interesting place for your company to show up, too.

The ways it can show up are broader than most people assume — thought leadership articles, sponsored content, industry summits across Southeast Asia, regional awards programmes, podcasts, and media placements in print and digital. The right fit depends on what you're trying to do, which is why we'd rather start with a conversation than send a rate card.

If your company has something this audience should know about, we'd like to hear what you're working on.

No rate cards until we understand the brief. It's a better use of everyone's time.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia

Top News

30 One-Sentence Stories From People Who Have Built Better Habits

None of these stories are mine. They were sent to me by readers of Atomic Habits. My hope is that these examples will illustrate how real people are putting the book into practice. They will show you what people are actually doing to build good habits and break bad ones. And hopefully, they will spark some ideas for how you can do the same.

news conversion

SBR 5 Lorem Ipsum News 2 [8 May]

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

SBR 4 Lorem Ipsum [8 May Top Stories]