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East Asia and the Pacific Confronts the “New Normal” Vikram Nehru
The developing countries of East Asia and the Pacific are leading the world out of the 2008–09 global economic and financial crisis. While the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed from 8.5 percent in 2008 to 7.0 percent in 2009, the region is expected to bounce back to 8.6 percent in 2010. But in an unusually diverse region, averages mask wide differences across countries. China, boosted by its unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus package, registered 8.7 percent GDP growth in 2009, down from 9.5 percent in 2010 but still an exceptional performance in a contracting global economy. Remove China from the East Asia aggregate, however, and the rest of the region grew by only 1.3 percent in 2009, much lower than South Asia and only just higher than SubSaharan Africa (table 19.1). The reality is that East Asia’s performance was decidedly mixed in 2009. Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Papua New Guinea,
This chapter is a shortened version of the publication of the World Bank’s East Asia Region, “East Asia and the Pacific: Emerging Stronger from the Crisis,” World Bank, Washington, DC, April 2010, at: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/EXTEAPHALFYEARLYUPDATE/0,,contentMD K:20275253~pagePK:64168427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:550226,00.html. 331