The JCER recently released a medium-term forecast of Asian economies entitled “Asia in the coronavirus disaster: Which countries are emerging?”, which addresses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and looks at how Asian economies are faring compared with others around the world.

In the standard scenario, JCER assumes that the pandemic is a transient event that will not affect economic structures over the medium term.

Under this assumption, only China, Viet Nam, and Chinese Taipei are on track to maintain positive year-on-year growth rates in 2020.

In relation to Viet Nam, it is anticipated to maintain a growth rate of approximately 6% in 2035 due to its strong exports. 

This would therefore propel the Vietnamese economy to overtake that of Chinese Taipei in 2035 in terms of scale whilst also making it the second largest economy in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.

Indeed, the nation is poised to achieve upper middle-income status by 2023, with income per capita set to reach US$11,000 by 2035.

The report also included a severe scenario that describes an outcome in which the coronavirus not only damages today’s economy but also affects urbanisation, trade openness, R&D spending, and a host of other factors, undermining countries’ potential growth rates over the medium term.

According to this scenario, the growth rates of the US, Viet Nam, Singapore, and others in 2035 would be significantly lower than those under the standard scenario, largely due to trade blockages.

In addition, China would therefore be relatively unaffected and would be capable of emerging in a strong position.