Asia ‘leading world out of economic downturn’
Business leaders of 21 member economies from Asia and the Pacific Rim have gathered together for their annual forum and their primary focus this year was about the global economic downturn.
The region’s leaders said that Asia is ‘leading the world out of the recession’. The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation’s (Apec) positive comments reflect those from the International Monetary Fund, which last month said that Asia would expand by 2.75% in 2009 and 5.75% next year, compared with flat to negative growth in the US and Western Europe.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that, with weaker US growth, “somebody else has to spend more somewhere else in the world…..and this has to be in Asia.”
“The next few years’ growth will be slow worldwide but in the long term, Asia will do well,” Mr Lee said.
“Historically, the developed economies led recoveries. This time, it’s going to be the developing economies,” said Dennis Nally, global chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers International.
The forum saw the annual gathering of 21 of the world’s biggest economies who make up for 44% of world trade and 40% of the world’s population.
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The IMF says the U.S. is projected to grow 1.5% versus a 2.75% for Asia. Given the size of America’s economy, and the skewingly high growth rate of China in Asia and China’s lack of consumer demand, it’s clear that (if these projections are roughly correct) we’re looking at a return to the same pattern whereby the U.S. is importing the goods Asia makes, and China is importing commodities and ‘parts’ from other Asian nations to make those goods to sell to the United States. That’s hardly leading the world out of a downturn, and if U.S. consumption of imports does not rebound there will be no sustainable rebound in Asia, either. This meme that the developing nations are now on top is growing less and less rational and more and more hyperbolic by the week.