The Malaysian and Thai economies have produced improved third quarter growth figures, suggesting that recovery is spreading through the region.
Malaysian GDP contracted 1.2% in the third quarter from a year earlier, after declining 3.9% in the three months to June.
Thailand revealed a fall of 2.8% in the September quarter, well down on the 4.9% fall in the June three months.
The improvements confirm that the rebound in Asia is just not happening in China, South Korea and Taiwan.
The stories are all the same: rebound in the September quarter after those sharp contractions in the first two quarters of this year.
Taken with last week’s good news from Singapore, there’s now a clear sign that the Asean economies (apart from Indonesia, which never dipped into the red anyway) are on the way back.
Singapore last week raised its 2009 GDP estimate and said its economy will grow 3% to 5% in 2010 after shrinking as much as 2.5%.
Growth in the September quarter was 0.6% quarter on quarter, against a fall of 3.3% in the previous three months to June.
The Thai figures show the economy grew 1.3% from the June quarter, a big positive for the economy which has been badly hurt by a slump in tourism and a fall in car exports.
The figures support the contention of the Thai central bank that the economy is now “out of recession”, citing improving employment and quarter-on-quarter GDP expansion.
But like so many other central banks, the Thai body left interest rates on hold, fearing a rise would hit the emerging rebound and knock the economy back into the red.
In Malaysia forecasts of a rise in GDP this year were borne out by the latest growth report.
The economy is still expected to shrink by around 3% this calendar year (about what Singapore is expecting), but that’s a big improvement on the damage projected earlier in the year.
Like Thailand, industrial production is starting to grow and the slump in exports has been turned around.
Like the Thai central bank, Malaysia’s Bank Negara Malaysia has left its main interest rate unchanged at a record-low 2% for much of this year to allow the economy to start growing.
Bank Negara meets today and is expected to hold rates steady for a sixth time this year.
Malaysia’s manufacturing industry shrank 8.6% in the third quarter from a year earlier and exports were down 13.4%, but that is an enormous improvement from the 29%-plus fall seen in the year to May.
