We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
The global economy has been in the grip of the worst economic downturn since World War II, painting a bleak picture of the global economic outlook around the world. The global economic slump in 2009 witnessed a contraction of the advanced economies by 2 per cent — 2.4 per cent for the United States (US), 1.8 per cent for the European Union (EU), and 5.8 per cent for Japan. While a turnaround in the economic prospects in 2010–11 is expected to be gradual and highly uncertain, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cautioned that the timing and pace of the recovery hinge critically on strong policy actions to rebalance growth paths.
The impact of the global economic turmoil on the Southeast Asian community, however, is less clear-cut. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) revised downward the major Southeast Asian economies' growth to the worst post-1997 contraction in 2009 — at least 6 per cent for Singapore, 2.7 per cent for Thailand and 0.2 per cent for Malaysia. The rest of the region, in contrast, had yet to feel the ripple effects as the economic growth remained robust — 7 per cent for Vietnam, 4.8 per cent for Cambodia, 4.5 per cent for Indonesia and 3.7 per cent for the Philippines.
The Southeast Asian region as a whole is by no means recession-proof, nevertheless. Recent developments convey a series of caveats and worries about the resilience and sustainability of its economic conditions. The International Labour Organization (ILO), for instance, estimated a spike in unemployment rates across the region from 5.7 per cent in 2008 to 6.2 per cent in 2009. This means 7.2 million more jobless people due to the fallout from the global economic recession.
In fact, among the worst hit regions is Southeast Asia where the emerging economies have long thrived on export-led development and foreign direct investment (FDI). On the one hand, the trade link between Southeast Asia and major industrialized countries is substantial, with the US, the EU and Japan sharing more than 60 per cent of total demand for exports from the region.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
