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Showing posts with label Recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recession. Show all posts

Sunday 20 August 2023

Recession unlikely for global economy but challenges linger on

 

THE global macroeconomic picture is still more sluggish than investors would have liked, particularly when viewed from the gross domestic product (GDP) growth perspective for the first half of 2023 (1H23), although it remains a stretch to say the world is heading for a recession.

A quick glance across the Causeway to Singapore sees the city-state registering a 0.5% yearon-year (y-o-y) growth rate for the second quarter of the year (2Q23), extending marginally from the 0.4% expansion it charted for the preceding quarter.

Elsewhere, such as in major markets like the United States, China and the eurozone, economists are of the opinion that growth has been sturdy during 1H23 but stiff hurdles still remain on the horizon.

While acknowledging that global GDP growth has been slower so far in 2023 due to several familiar factors such as higher interest rates and elevated cost pressures, newly appointed Bank Negara governor Datuk Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour is also not expecting the global economy to slip into recession.

He says resilient domestic demand in advanced economies is providing sufficient support, while also anticipating worldwide trade to improve towards the end of 2023.

Most notably, he perceives China’s slower-than-expected recovery to have limited impact on Malaysia’s own economic expansion and improvement.

“Malaysia’s economy is well diversified in terms of products, services and trade partners, which would cushion the Chinese impact,” says Abdul Rasheed.

According to Bernard Aw, chief economist at Singapore’s Coface Services South Asia-pacific Pte Ltd, although the global economy has been resilient year-to-date, growth outlook in the second half remains challenging, not the least from increasing signals of weakening Chinese economic activity.

Forecasting global GDP expansion to be at 2.2% y-o-y for 2023, and anticipating a similar growth rate of 2.3% growth for next year, he says: “We expect Asean GDP growth (2023: 4.3%; 2024: 4.6%) to be generally faster than advanced economies – at 4.3% and 4.6% for 2023 and 2024 respectively – as tourism recovery and domestic demand drives economic activity.”

Continuing subdued external demand for the region would imply that domestic demand has to continue to partially offset some of the slack, Aw, tells Starbizweek.

“However, the challenging economic environment worldwide, relatively high inflation and interest rates means that even growth in domestic consumption and investment may fall short of expectations,” Aw opines.

Commenting on the overall global interest rate environment, he believes that the trend of disinflation would continue into 2H23, mainly driven by lower energy prices, coupled with China’s deflation having fed into lower export prices, which has also moderated global price pressures.

On the flipside, Aw thinks underlying inflation will remain fairly sticky, despite not being severe enough necessarily for central banks to revert to hiking rates.

“Having said that, they will likely maintain the current restrictive interest rates for a longer-than-expected period,” he says.

Earlier in July, it was reported that the United States economy had grown 2.4% y-o-y in 2Q23, up from the 2% it posted for the first three months of the year and bringing 1H23 GDP to a commendable 2.2%.

“The improved expansion rate had been driven by consumer spending, on top of increases in non-residential fixed investment, government spending and inventory growth.

At the same time, China had registered a 6.3% 2Q23 y-o-y GDP growth rate, which was also an improvement from the 4.5% charted in the previous quarter.

The acceleration however was slower than the expected 7.3% forecast by economists on a Reuters poll, dragged back by tepid demand and sinking property prices which has sapped consumer confidence.

On the same note, chief executive of Centre for Market Education Carmelo Ferlito feels that China’s post “zero-covid” recovery has been fragile since the beginning.

“The economy is not an engine to be switched on and off, but rather it is a living emergent order.

“As such, China is paying the price to a degree with its severe, nation-wide lockdowns while it was implementing the zero-covid policy,” he says.

The decelerating growth in China, says Ferlito, is evidenced by the People’s Bank of China unexpectedly cutting a range of key interest rates on Tuesday, which is seen as an emergency move to reignite growth after new data showed the economy has decelerated further last month.

With Chinese officials from its National Bureau of Statistics also suspending reports on youth unemployment, he says the move would deprive investors, economists and businesses of another key data point on the declining health of the world’s second-largest economy.

Divulging more numbers, Ferlito says the twin moves of cutting rates and holding back unemployment data from the Chinese government has coincided with new data showing a slowdown in spending growth by consumers and businesses.

“Concurrently, factory output grew much less than expected, adding to a recent raft of worrying signals. For the first time since February, China’s headline measure of unemployment rose, climbing to 5.3%.

“The jobless rate for people ages 16 to 24, meanwhile, had marched steadily higher for six consecutive months to hit a series of record highs, culminating in a reading of 21.3% in June,” he says.

Ferlito says an economic trichotomy is emerging on the global scene, before adding: “The United States is still fighting inflation, but countries like Germany and Holland are starting to experience technical recession, while China is facing challenges of its own.

“It is that post-lockdown crisis that the CME predicted two years ago.”

Echoing Bank Negara governor Abdul Rasheed, he re-emphasises that it is important to look beyond GDP figures, making his case that if the GDP of a country declines because of a cut in impractical government spending, that would be positive for a country.

Conversely, he argues if GDP growth were to accelerate due to an increase in spending financed by debt, it ultimately would be a bane to the government’s coffers and the national economy.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting a 3% GDP global growth rate for this year and the next, receding from the 3.5% achieved in 2022.

It says the rise in central bank policy rates to stave off inflation has continued to weigh on economic activity, but the good news is that global headline inflation is expected to fall from 8.7% last year to 6.8% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024.

“The recent resolution of the US debt ceiling stand-off and strong action by authorities to contain turbulence in the US and Swiss banking earlier this year reduced the immediate risks of financial sector turmoil. This moderated adverse risks to the outlook,” the IMF says.

However, it cautions that the balance of risks to global growth remains tilted to the downside, as inflation could remain high and even rise if further shocks occur, including those from an escalation of the Russia-ukraine conflict.

Moreover, the IMF warns that China’s recovery could slow further, partly due to unresolved real estate problems, with negative cross-border spillovers.

On the upside, inflation could fall faster than expected, reducing the need for tight monetary policy, and domestic demand could again prove more resilient

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Saturday 27 July 2019

Trade War Spurs Recession Risk in Singapore

The Tanjong Pagar container terminal in Singapore.
  • Shock contraction in quarterly GDP raises risk of job losses
  • Officials already grappling with aging, productivity threats
Singapore’s economic data have gone from bad to worse this month. Exports slumped to their second-worst rate since the global financial crisis, the purchasing managers index slipped into contraction for the first time since 2016, and the economy shrank the most in almost seven years in the second quarter.

Exports, manufacturing PMIs sink to multi-year lows





After spending much of early 2019 enjoying relative resilience, a recession is now looming. That’s a warning shot for regional and global economies, since Singapore’s heavy reliance on trade makes it somewhat of a bellwether for the rest of Asia.


The severity of the slump may be down to trade tensions and a global slowdown, but Singapore has been grappling with longstanding economic threats that have been slowly eroding the city state’s growth potential: rapid aging, labor market shrinkage, and sluggish productivity among them. Those risks will become more acute for policy makers now.

“Any undue turbulence or prolonged stresses from the trade war are only going to compound the challenges of all the other issues -- productivity, demographics, anything else,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics & strategy at Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Singapore. “External demand concerns will be at the top of the list for now, because if you don’t get that one right it’s that much more difficult to solve everything else.”

Singapore remains one of the most export-reliant economies in the world, with trade equivalent to 326% of gross domestic product, according to World Bank data. That puts the city state at the center of the storm stirred up by its top two trading partners sparring over tariffs.

The shock GDP figures earlier this month prompted some analysts to downgrade their Singapore forecasts for the year to below 1%. The government is set to revisit its own 1.5%-2.5% range next month, but for now, it’s remaining calm, seeing no recession for the full year.

What Bloomberg’s Economists Say...

“Barring a swift rapprochement in U.S.-China trade relations, our forecast for a 0.2% year-on-year contraction in Singapore in 2019 remains on course.
The government has ample firepower to cushion the blow, but it may not be enough to avoid a recession.”
-Tamara Henderson, Asean economist
The slump is largely contained so far to manufacturing, which makes up about a fifth of the economy, but could soon spread to other sectors such as retail and financial services. That increases the risk of job losses at a time when businesses like International Business Machines Corp. are already laying off workers and banks such as Nomura Holdings Inc. cut staff.

The number of retrenched workers in Singapore rose to the highest in more than a year in the first quarter, though the unemployment rate has remained fairly steady at 2.2% amid a recovery in construction.

“The labor market looks to be on two tracks at the moment -- there’s a weak market in the manufacturing sector but a steady one in the services sector,” said Shaun Roache, chief Asia-Pacific economist at S&P Global Ratings in Singapore. “High-frequency indicators including industrial production and trade suggest that the environment will remain challenging in manufacturing for the year.”

While those cyclical headwinds buffer the outlook, policy makers are also grappling with structural impediments to growth.






SINGAPORE AGING
An employee clears tables at a food center in Singapore.
Faced with a rapidly aging population, the government has been on an aggressive campaign to re-skill its labor force and prepare workers for a postponed retirement. The median age is set to rise to 46.8 years in 2030 from 39.7 in 2015, faster than the other top economies in Southeast Asia as well as the world as a whole, according to United Nations projections.

Tied to its rapid aging is Singapore’s productivity conundrum.






As the labor pool shrinks and gets older, the city state’s answer to the productivity challenge has been to automate and digitize. With an ambition to become a “Smart Nation,” the government has poured money and energy into digitization projects of all kinds, from helping seniors fine-tune smartphone skills at digital clinics to attracting financial technology giants to set up shop and test their ideas.





Silver-Medal Race
It’s that technological advancement, along with its world-beating infrastructure and efficiency, that continues to make Singapore attractive to businesses like Dyson Ltd., the U.K. manufacturer that picked the city state for its location to build its first electric cars. It’s also a reason why officials are confident Singapore can meet its foreign investment targets for this year.

“They’re saying the right thing, doing the right thing,” said Edward Lee, chief economist for South and Southeast Asia at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore, who has penciled in 1% growth for 2019. “Retraining, ongoing structural reforms on the labor side -- those are the right things.”

By

 — With assistance by Cynthia Li