Developing Asia to maintain stable growth this year: ADB report

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) maintained Thursday its stable growth forecast for Asia this year and next despite slower-than-expected growth in major industrial countries, according to an updated ADB report for 2014 released Thursday.

The ADB kept its forecasts for growth of gross domestic product (GDP) for developing Asia at 6.2 percent in 2014 and 6.4 percent in 2015, the fastest-growing economy globally, said the updated Asian Development Bank Outlook 2014.

The report predicts the United States, the eurozone and Japan are expected to grow collectively by 1.5 percent in 2014, before growth picks up to 2.1 percent next year.

It added that measures to stabilize investment helped China sustain its expansion.

"China appears on track to meet ADO 2014 growth forecasts of 7. 5 percent in 2014 and 7.4 percent in 2015."

As India's new government is well placed to pursue reforms to unlock the economy's potential, the South Asian country "shows new promise of a turnaround."

The report said GDP in East Asia would grow at 6.7 percent in 2014 and 2015 as moderating growth in China and Hong Kong and a slowdown in Mongolia are offset by export-driven upswings in South Korea and China's Taiwan.

It predicted that Southeast Asia will see stronger growth next year after a soft 2014 with a projected growth of 4.6 percent this year, down from the 5.0 percent forecast and compares with growth of 5.0 percent in 2013.

"Domestic demand has moderated in some of the bigger economies, with GDP forecasts trimmed for Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam," it said, adding that South Asia is performing better than expected.

Growth in South Asia will pick up to 6.1 percent in 2015, 0.3 percentage points higher than previously forecast and that in Central Asia is hobbled by a slowdown in Russia, it predicted.

Meanwhile, the report pointed out that talks to solidify Southeast Asia into an economic community slowed as negotiations moved to more difficult stage, which may result in ASEAN' failure to meet its self-imposed 2015 deadline.

"Progress has slowed since negotiations progressed to the more difficult reforms: eliminating nontariff barriers, liberalizing service trade, improving the business climate and competition policy, strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights and narrowing development gaps," the report said.

In the process for ASEAN members to establish an economic community, they still needs to overcome many challenges for realizing their goal scheduled at the end of next year, it added.