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East Asia & Pacific is facing some great development challenges today: urbanization, protection of the environment, the need to find renewable energy sources and many others. This site wants to create a conversation around those important issues. More »

All East Asia & Pacific

In Thailand, finding the way back into growth: Step 1, switch the supply chains back on

Submitted by Frederico Gil Sander on Wed, 2009-11-04 12:35

As part of its regular monitoring of the corporate sector in Southeast Asia, the World Bank economic team I am part of in Thailand has been working on a short case study of supply chains of Japanese multinational companies (MNCs) in the electrical and electronics (E&E) industry. We wanted to hear directly from firms about how the crisis affected them, how they were able to adjust so quickly to the drop in demand, what the rebound looked like, and what were the prospects going forward to upgrade along the value chain. I have learned a great deal from these interviews, and have become convinced that supply chains are central to understanding the current crisis in Thailand and East Asia more generally.

Some facts: the crisis had a disproportionate impact on manufacturing. In Thailand, manufacturing represents about 40 percent of GDP, but contractions in manufacturing value added have accounted for about 75 percent of the contraction of headline GDP. Within manufacturing, the auto and E&E industries account for the bulk of the contraction. Most of the output in those industries is exported, and more than three-fourths of the decline in Thai exports during the crisis was due to falls in shipments from the auto and E&E industries. My conclusion is that the magnitude of the crisis in Thailand has been driven primarily by these two industries.

Growth in China continues to influence East Asia’s economic recovery, two new World Bank reports say

Submitted by James I Davison on Tue, 2009-11-03 23:10

Regionally speaking, developing countries in East Asia and Pacific have rebounded surprisingly quickly from the financial crisis and global recession. But according to a report just released by the World Bank, the regional economic picture isn’t as rosy when China is taken out of the equation. The latest East Asia and Pacific Update report, an assessment of the economic health of the region released every six months, is titled “Transforming the Rebound into Recovery.” The rebound, the report says, was driven in part by large and timely fiscal stimulus spending led by China and Korea. Still, despite the well-performing economies of Indonesia and Vietnam, developing East Asia excluding China is projected to grow at just around 1 percent in 2009. And for Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand, GDP is contracting.

The China Quarterly Update – a separate report released at the same time as the latest regional assessment and focusing specifically on the Chinese economy – gives a more complete picture of why the country has seen such robust economic growth and what the future may hold. The Bank now projects China to see GDP growth of 8.4 percent for 2009, says the report. The report’s lead author (and blogger) Louis Kuijs wrote an accompanying blog post, which can be read here.

I really recommend taking some time to explore the findings of both reports by visiting the East Asia Update and China Quarterly pages, where you can also download high resolution graphs and watch video interviews with the economists. Also, you'll be able to ask two World Bank economists questions about the regional report in an online chat taking place Thursday, November 12, at 10 a.m. DC time (15:00 GMT or 11:00 p.m. in Beijing). Send your questions now for a better chance of getting them answered.

Interactive climate change map shows what a warmer world could look like

Submitted by James I Davison on Mon, 2009-11-02 17:21

As next month’s climate change conference in Copenhagen draws closer, we are undoubtedly going to see the amount of online discourse on the topic continue to increase. The latest example comes from the British government, which last week released an interactive map showing the possible impact of a global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit). An article in the Guardian says the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre produced the map based on a recent study that indicates, "such a 4C rise could come as soon as 2060 without urgent and serious action to reduce emissions." The newspaper also quotes the government’s chief scientist as saying that such a temperature shift would be “disastrous.”

Indeed, after exploring the map for just a few minutes, you see how devastating the consequences of a warmer planet might be. By zooming in and clicking and dragging with your mouse, you can navigate the map to see what could happen to different parts of the globe. Be sure to click on some of the plus signs, which give you a brief overview of an issue and the option to click to learn more and view sources of the research. The map, its creators say, displays the latest in peer-reviewed climate change research.

Looking around East Asia, you’ll see that some of the impacts listed include decrease in rice yield, extreme temperatures in population centers of eastern China, and flooding caused by rising sea levels.
 

Click on the map to interact. View full screen map here.

(Hat tip: From Poverty to Power blog.)

Online mapping tool gives view of forests in developing countries

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-10-28 17:10

In July, biodiversity specialist and blogger Tony Whitten wrote a post about not abandoning old-fashioned conservation techniques as an important method of taking positive action on climate change. One of the important old-school mitigation methods, he wrote, lies in protecting the world’s forests through reforestation and avoiding further deforestation.

Accordingly, a big part of the ongoing climate change discussion includes reducing emissions through deforestation and degradation (known as REDD). And the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization now offers a tool to help monitor forests in developing countries. Using satellite imagery and other data, the Global Forest Resources Assessment Portal displays the information on an interactive map.

New visualization tool displays development data with simple, animated graphs

Submitted by James I Davison on Thu, 2009-10-22 15:52
Click to view large.

A colleague over at the PSD blog first pointed out yesterday a brand new data visualization tool recently rolled out by the World Bank. The Data Visualizer displays the 2009 World Development Indicators – including 49 indicators for 209 countries from 1960-2007 – in an attractive, easy-to-understand and highly customizable way. The data contains social, economic, financial and environmental indicators and can be filtered in a number of different ways, including by region and country.

Someone familiar with Gapminder.org, which I wrote about last spring, will quickly notice that this new tool from the World Bank is quite similar to the Gapminder World animated graphing tool. As I mentioned in that post, I think one of the most interesting aspects of this type of data visualization is being able to literally hit Play and witness how the data indicators have changed over time right in front of your eyes.

Climate Change won't go away – so get the basics right now

Submitted by Florian Kitt on Thu, 2009-10-15 09:24

Editor's note: This post is part of Blog Action Day on climate change. For more information, visit blogactionday.org.

Apologies for having been out of touch since Carbon Expo. I needed a break, and summer in Croatia proved one can have a life beyond international development and carbon finance. Climate change, however, very much stayed on my mind with reports of wildfires in the United States and Greece. Clearly, one cannot escape all-encompassing global change, in particular when negotiations have now started in earnest on a post-2012 treaty to reduce carbon emissions and provide financing for developing countries.

Some still think that climate change is just a buzz topic and will quietly disappear from global attention. Let me assure you that many people in East Asian and Pacific countries would disagree. They are hit by natural disasters, which in recent years not only steadily increased in frequency, but also in intensity.

Regional Finance Roundup: Is East Asia leading the world out of the crisis?

Submitted by James Seward on Tue, 2009-09-29 16:30

Given that Asia is now widely seen as leading the world out of the crisis, it is fitting that the role of Asia was more prominently recognized in the global economic system in the recent G20 meeting held in Pittsburgh.  Since we last looked in July, the outlook for the emerging markets of East Asia has continued to brighten.  The latest regional forecasts come from the Asian Development Bank in its Asian Development Outlook (pdf) published last week.  It points to “the rapid turnaround in [Asia’s] largest, less export-dependent economies” and predicts that “the regional economy is now poised to achieve a V-shaped rebound.”  These are very positive words indeed!  As the graph below shows, the ADB has in fact upgraded its growth forecasts for a number of economies for 2009.

Although the signs are pointing upwards, performance is still mixed in a number of key areas.

Doing Business 2010: Indonesia, China and the Philippines among countries noted for at least one reform

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-09-09 16:02

Earlier today, the World Bank released its annual Doing Business report, which tracks business regulation reforms and ranks emerging economies on the “ease of doing business.” In East Asia and Pacific, 71 percent of the countries have undertaken at least one positive reform – with Indonesia being the region’s most active reformer, according to the report (pdf). Among other things, Indonesia cut the time required to start a business and the number of days to transfer a property.

Deflation in Thailand?

Submitted by Frederico Gil Sander on Mon, 2009-08-24 23:00

When the capacity of the economy to supply goods and services (given by its factories, workers, etc.) exceeds demand, as happens in a crisis, there is pressure for prices to fall. A continued decline in prices (deflation) can in turn aggravate the economic crisis, because consumers expect prices will be lower in the future and so have an incentive to postpone purchases. They also fear that their wages (the price of labor) may decline along with other prices, and tend to save more. These factors further reduce demand and may create a vicious cycle, such as the one that happened in Japan in the 1990s.

But not all changes in prices are related to the underlying domestic economy. If price changes are expected to be "one-off" then the expectations of consumers about future prices do not change, and the logic above does not apply.

Remittances to East Asian countries now expected to fall 6 to 8.8 percent in 2009

Submitted by James I Davison on Tue, 2009-08-04 08:09

A few weeks ago, the World Bank’s migration and remittances team released its latest forecast of global remittance flows, indicating that even fewer migrants from developing East Asian and Pacific countries may be sending home money this year than they predicted in an earlier report. Remittances flowing to countries in the region are now forecast to fall by 5.7-8.8 percent in 2009, according to the report (pdf). Revised 2008 data show China, the Philippines and Vietnam are in the top 10 recipients of remittances among developing countries.

Interestingly, despite indicating falling remittance flows to the East Asia and Pacific region, the outlook states that South and East Asian countries have been relatively strong. There is, of course, a risk of a further slowing down. For example, remittance money flowing to the Philippines appears to still be growing this year. But such positive flows went from 14 percent year-on-year growth in 2007-08 to just 3 percent growth so far in 2009, according to the report.

The report’s authors write that there may be key risks that further threatening global remittance flows to developing countries – including a longer-than-projected financial crisis threatening jobs and income for immigrants in developed countries. However, they write, recovery may come by next year: “We expect that remittance flows to developing countries could decline by 7-10 percent in 2009, with a possible recovery in 2010 and 2011.”

What’s the significance of remittances? One notable example came from blogger Eric Le Borgne last April. Eric pointed out that remittances are a key factor to the economic health of the Philippines, as well as the country’s resilience so far during the global financial crisis.