Investing.com — Asian Tigers, widely known as Asia’s high-growth economies viz. Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan suffered from a major plunge in the GDP growth last quarter.
We all know that the slump in the economy came thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the more surprising part was the extent of this decline for some countries. Singapore’s GDP plunged by a massive 13.2% YoY in the second quarter ending June 2020. The lockdown inflicted damage on the tourism and retail sectors of Singapore while weak global demand impacted the exports.
Talking of exports, South Korea is another economy that is dependent a lot on exports for its economic growth. Although its GDP declined by a nominal 2.9% in the June quarter compared to the last year, it was still the biggest fall in the last 22 years. Exports for South Korea plunged by 16.6%.
Hong Kong, which is already struggling from the double whammy of coronavirus and China imposing national security law on it, suffered from a 9% contraction in its GDP in the last quarter. Hong Kong’s GDP has now declined for the fourth straight quarter, which has already been hit by the anti-government protests last year.
Out of all the Asian Tigers economies, Taiwan’s economy was the least impacted as its GDP declined by a mere 0.73% year-on-year. Taiwan was able to control the spread of the coronavirus, and the decline mainly came from the reduction of travelers thereby impacting the airlines and the hotel industry.
The damage to the economy was even higher to developed economies like the U.S. and the UK. US GDP contracted by 34% but the fiscal and monetary support from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the US government supported the stock markets. Similarly, the UK’s GDP declined by 20% in the last quarter.
