Without a doubt, 2020 will go down in history as a black mark against the inexorable rise of Asia’s economies. Across the region, economic growth ground to a halt as attention was focused on battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
The region as a whole was dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic. S&P’s report ‘Asia-Pacific losses near $3tn as balance sheet recession looms’, published in June 2020, forecast the region’s economy would contract by 1.3% in 2020, but grow by 6.9% in 2021. The cumulative impact would be a loss of almost $3tn across those two years. S&P warns of a possible balance sheet recession, caused by a drop in investment, a slow recovery and economic damage that will continue even after a vaccine has been found.
