financial crisis

In a previous blog I summarized our views on China’s growth prospects, developed while writing the World Bank’s recent China Quarterly Update economic report. We think that China is likely to continue to see respectable growth in a difficult global environment. At this important juncture for China and the world economy, what is the upshot of this for policymaking?

At any point in time, governments need to work on short-term macroeconomic policies and on more medium- and long-term policies. There are trade-offs. More attention to short-term policies typically means less attention to the policies and reforms that are important for the medium and long term. We think that, given that China has already put in place a forceful short-term stimulus that seems effective in keeping growth respectable, China can put more emphasis on the structural reforms to promote continued, sustainable growth.

There continues to be a lot of discussion in China whether GDP growth will reach the government target of 8 percent this year, and whether the government should put in place more stimulus measures, typically presumed to be the kind of infrastructure-oriented stimulus that characterizes the package already in place.

I think it would not be a good idea to add more traditional, infrastructure-oriented fiscal stimulus in 2009. Why?

It's been a very enriching experience to listen to the reactions of these 1200 or so college students.

Over the past couple of weeks, thanks to my colleagues Saroeun and Sophinith, I have traveled to various universities in Cambodia to present the findings of the World Bank’s growth report for the country. It's been a very enriching experience to listen to the reactions of these 1200 or so students. It was also nice to see the dynamism of these universities and these students.

Most interesting was the focus of their questions. Although the report is focused on medium- and long-term trends, many questions were about the impact of the global economic crisis. My answer: Cambodia is very exposed to the crisis given its openness and reliance on foreign investment, and despite the strong resilience of its rural economy.

There were also many questions about extractive industries. The answer is in Chapter 5 of the report: there remain considerable uncertainties about the potential in oil and gas and in mining, with in fact practically no major proven commercially viable reserve so far.

Getting a clear view on where China’s economy is heading is not easy at the moment, as evidenced by large variations in GDP growth forecasts. One of the confusing developments is that while exports have continued to do badly recently, the domestic economy has exceeded most observers’ expectations by a wide margin.

Working in recent weeks on the World Bank’s new China Quarterly Update, released today, we have been trying to determine how the economy has been doing on balance, what the prospects are, and what this means for economic policy. In this blog, I will summarize our understanding of recent developments and prospects, leaving the upshot for economic policies for a later discussion (keep reading after the jump).

I apologize for the lack of recent posts, but I have been traveling in the region and then getting over a cold, so I’m finally back in action.  One of the stops during the trip last month was to Jakarta to participate in our internal Economist’s Forum.  This forum was very interesting and included sessions with the Indonesian Minister of Finance, as well as the Minister of Trade.  The session that I participated in was focused on the implications of the current global economic crisis and the impacts on East Asian financial sectors.  This was a good opportunity to consolidate our own thoughts on the subject and to lay out the basic issues as we see them today (I’ve attached the presentation, which comes with the required caveat that these are not official World Bank views, but instead my personal views). 

This presentation starts by running through what we know, what we can expect to know and how we know what we know, and why it is so hard to know anything in the area of corporate and financial sectors.  We then move into how we see the crisis coming to Asia, the impact on corporations, the spillover to the financial sector, the policy responses to the crisis to date, and finally what the World Bank is doing.  We begin by admitting that it is difficult to do accurate corporate and financial sector analysis for a wide range of reasons, ranging from problems with reporting and disclosure to weaknesses in regulatory standards and financial supervision practices.  Despite this constraint, we can see some general regional trends... 

Imagine how the new Indonesia would prosper if everyone had affordable health insurance, every child completed secondary education and highways were in place connecting Indonesia’s three biggest cities: Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan.

The good news is that today Indonesia’s main challenge is not to save resources but to spend them wisely. This still remains the case, even in the face of the global financial crisis. Despite its position of relative strength, Indonesia has two main weaknesses: the allocation of funds and the implementation of its budget. Despite some impressive steps to rein in subsidies, significant resources are still being spent on subsidies that benefit the well-off, mainly on fuel, electricity and fertilizers. In 2008, subsidies consumed an estimated 23 percent of total government spending. Indonesia also spends a disproportionately large share on “government apparatus,” at 13 percent of the total budget (see chart 1). Interestingly, this is not due to a bloated central government civil service. Instead, it is driven by regional governments, who spend a staggering 32 percent on themselves.

This somewhat provocative question was the title of a conference hosted by Oxford and Standard Charter this week in London.  My answer was: "No, not tomorrow; but yes, eventually – especially if China continues to vigorously pursue economic reform."
 
The reason that China cannot be the engine of global growth tomorrow is straight-forward.  For the last decade an awful lot of the final demand in the world has come from the U.S.  That era is over for the time being as U.S. households now concentrate on rebuilding their savings.  No one country can fill the gap left by the slowdown in U.S. consumption: Japan, Germany, and China together have less consumption than the U.S., so no one of them can replace the U.S. as the major source of demand in the world.  It's not realistic to expect China to play that role.  But we are probably moving into a more multi-polar period in which there is more balanced growth in all of the major economies. 

I have received many encouraging responses to my first blog. Thank you. This time, let's look at Indonesia's budget. Last year, Indonesia's budget reached the magical threshold of US$100 billion. With total expenditures of Rupiah 985 trillion and an average exchange rate of 9,750 Rupiah per US dollar, Indonesia's government spent exactly US$101 billion.  In 2009, the budget may not increase and will likely decline in US$ terms. With the global financial crisis the Rupiah has depreciated against the US$, similar to most other developing countries currencies. However, it is safe to assume that in the next few years Indonesia will have a budget which exceeds US$100 billion and is set to reach its own magical threshold of Rp 1,000 trillion in the near future.

One of the most contentious topics over the past decade has been Indonesia's debt and the role of international institutions. Some still think Indonesia has a debt problem and that loans from international institutions, such as the World Bank, have contributed to Indonesia's previous debt burden. The opposite is true, and here's why.

In terms of big newsworthy events in Asia, one of the biggest has to be the anti-government protests in Thailand. A relatively small number of protesters dramatically caused the cancellation of an ASEAN+3 meeting held in Pattaya this past weekend where 10 regional heads of state were evacuated. The World Bank President, as well as the head of the IMF and UN, were turned around at the airport in Bangkok. Although the protests around the country have effectively ended after martial law was declared and two protesters died, the damage of this may be longer-lasting. Although a discussion of the politics would be interesting, let's concentrate on the finance-related issues.

"There are signs that the strongest economy in the region, China, is beginning to turn the corner. ... A return to stronger economic expansion in China next year should help support growth among the countries of the East Asia and Pacific region."

Despite an expected surge in joblessness and shrinking GDP growth forecasts in many of the region's countries, the World Bank's latest East Asia and Pacific Update, released last week, highlights China as a hope for leading the way to recovery. The biannual assessment of the region's economic health predicts economic activity in China to bottom out by midyear.

This week on Thursday, you'll have a chance to ask questions to the World Bank economists in a live online chat. Lead Economist and author of the report Ivailo Izvorski and Vikram Nehru, Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, will answer questions on April 16 at 9:30 a.m. U.S. Eastern time (13:30 GMT). Be sure to submit your questions in advance for a better chance of having them answered. Check it out here.

In the World Bank's latest semi-annual economic update for the East Asia and Pacific region, titled "Battling the Forces of Global Recession" and released today, we mentioned the Philippine economy's resilience, both in absolute and relative terms. The latter is easy to grasp in a few numbers: global growth is projected to turn negative in 2009, as will growth in a large number of countries in the region (for example, Malaysia and Thailand).

In absolute terms, while we project growth to decelerate from its 2007 peak of 7.2 percent to 1.9 percent this year (after a respectable 4.6 percent in 2008), the Philippines would still be far from a recession – contrary to what happened during the 1997 Asian crisis. Many reasons explain the country's resilience, including policy and regulatory reforms that responded to the lessons drawn from the Asian crisis. However, there is one key factor driving this resilience.