The East Asia and Pacific region’s recovery has been undermined by the spread of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is likely slowing economic growth and increasing inequality in the region, the World Bank said on Monday.
Economic activity began to slow in the second quarter of this year, and growth forecasts have been downgraded for most countries in the region, the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Fall 2021 Economic Update said.
While China’s economy is projected to expand 8.5 percent, the rest of the region is forecast to grow at 2.5 percent, nearly 2 percentage points less than forecast in April, the World Bank said.
Photo: Reuters
“The economic recovery of developing East Asia and Pacific faces a reversal of fortune,” World Bank vice president for East Asia and Pacific Manuela Ferro said.
“Whereas in 2020 the region contained COVID-19 while other regions of the world struggled, the rise in COVID-19 cases in 2021 has decreased growth prospects for 2021,” Ferro said.
The economies of several Pacific island countries and Myanmar have been hit the hardest, with Myanmar expected to contract 18 percent while Pacific island countries as a group are anticipated to shrink 2.9 percent, the World Bank said.
Myanmar would experience the biggest contraction in employment in the region and the number of poor people in the country would rise, it added.
“There is no doubt the military takeover [in Myanmar] has led to a disruption of economic activity combined with the civil disobedience movement, which means fewer people are going to work,” World Bank chief economist for East Asia and Pacific Aaditya Mattoo said.
The report estimates that most countries in the region, including Indonesia and the Philippines, can vaccinate more than 60 percent of their populations by the first half of next year.
While that would not eliminate COVID-19 infections, it would significantly reduce mortality, allowing a resumption of economic activity.
The damage done by the resurgence and persistence of COVID-19 would likely hurt growth and increase inequality in the longer term, the World Bank said.
“Accelerated vaccination and testing to control COVID-19 infections could revive economic activity in struggling countries as early as the first half of 2022, and double their growth rate next year, but in the longer term, only deeper reforms can prevent slower growth and increasing inequality, an impoverishing combination the region has not seen this century,” Mattoo said.
The World Bank said the region would need to make a serious effort on four fronts to deal with the rise in COVID-19 cases by addressing vaccine hesitancy and limitations to distribution capacity, enhancing testing and tracing, increasing regional production of vaccines and improving local health systems.
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
NVIDIA PLATFORM: Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and a Taiwan site is to enter production next month, Nvidia wrote on its blog Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, yesterday said it is expanding production capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) servers based on Nvidia Corp’s Blackwell chips in Taiwan, the US and Mexico to cope with rising demand. Hon Hai’s new AI-enabled factories are to use Nvidia’s Omnivores platform to create 3D digital twins to plan and simulate automated production lines at a factory in Hsinchu, the company said in a statement. Nvidia’s Omnivores platform is for developing industrial AI simulation applications and helps bring facilities online faster. Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and the
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
AVIATION BOOM: CAL is to renew its passenger and cargo fleets starting next year on record profits as aviation continues to return to pre-pandemic levels China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said it is optimistic about next year’s business outlook, as the airline continues to renew its fleet on expectations that global passenger traffic would maintain steady growth and air cargo demand would remain strong. From next year to 2028, the airline is to welcome a new Boeing Co 787 fleet — 18 787-9 and six 787-10 passenger aircraft — to cover regional and medium to long-haul destinations, CAL chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) said at an investors’ conference in Taipei. The airline would also continue to introduce Airbus SE 321neo passenger planes and Boeing 777F cargo jets,
RSS