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banks, the trade rebound brings additional healing for export-reliant economies, and along with cleaner balance sheets and favourable inflation goals, gives policy makers room to breathe.
“The exports picture has been very strong this year, and that’s driven a lot of the upside surprise that you’ve seen across the region,” said Michael Wan, an economist at Credit Suisse Group AG, here.
“It’s not like they’re rushed to increase that pace of rate increases,” said Wan of regional central banks.
“We think it’s slow and steady.” Despite the spectre of protectionism and trade deals thrown for a whirl amid a United States policy revamp, global trade has kept up a healthy pace this year. It should remain so next year, said Oxford Economics Ltd global head of macro research Gabriel Sterne yesterday.
Oxford’s “China Factor” index — a three-month leading indicator that has a correlation of more than 80 per cent with the yearon-year pace of global trade — shows that stable demand in the world’s No. 2 economy should sustain this growth engine.
Solid demand for exports has kept factories humming in Thailand, where a 4.3 per cent jump in manufacturing contributed to a third-quarter boom in gross domestic product of the same pace, the strongest in more than four years, according to government figures released on Monday.
A rise in international visitors and a brighter outlook for consumer spending as the mourning period closes for King Bhumibol Adulyadej are set to sustain growth into next year.
The upbeat data out of Thailand followed news last week that Malaysia’s manufacturing sector, too, helped buoy a faster-thanexpected, 6.2 per cent thirdquarter growth rate that was the best in more than three years.
Export recovery has pushed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to raise his own growth forecasts, while also announcing measures to spur consumption, including tax cuts, in his budget speech last month.
The Philippines might be the fairest of them all, having achieved a 6.9 per cent year-overyear growth pace in the three months ending in September, primarily on government spending and investment. That surge matches the second-fastest pace since 2013 and marks the ninth straight quarter of growth above six per cent.
The growth in Southeast Asia mirrors what Goldman Sachs Group Inc sees as an outperformance of emerging markets next year.
“Current account deficits have decreased, inflation has moved towards targets, and the pace of debt accumulation has ticked down outside of China,” combined with an upturn in global trade, said economists led by Charles Himmelberg in a note to clients. Bloomberg overlap which should be approved based on legal precedent.
Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman and chief executive, said the anti-trust enforcers are ignoring “decades of clear legal precedent” and failed to take into account the “radical change” in the sector in which Internet platforms like Netflix are transforming how media is consumed.
At a news conference, he reaffirmed his opposition of divesting CNN to win approval. AFP