|
Domestic
demand, regional trade more important for Asia: Bank
AFP
- Hong Kong
The
main drivers of Asia’s economies are domestic consumption and
intra-regional trade rather than exports to the United States and
electronics shipments, a senior bank economist said.
“Electronics
are only 20-30 per cent of total exports,” Mr Andrew Freris,
BNP Paribas Asia Pacific chief economist told journalists. “My
guess is that 60 per cent of Asian trade starts and finishes in
Asia and 25 per cent goes to United States,” said Mr Freris,
although he said he was unable to confirm the figures due to the
lack of government statistics. He also dismissed the “anecdotal
evidence” that a large percentage of intra-Asian exports were
components moving between Asian factories but destined for US consumers.
He said that the impact of a worsening situation in Japan was not
a major problem for the rest of Asia.
|
E-Mail
Print