In Singapore, the analysts project 2025 GDP to grow by 1.4% y-o-y, compared to 2024’s 4.4% growth. South Korea is expected to see a GDP growth of 1.1% y-o-y this year compared to last year’s 2%. At the same time, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong are expected to see GDP growths of 2.6%, 3.8%, 1.9% and 2.1% compared to their 2024 GDPs of 4.7%, 5.1%, 2.6% and 2.5% respectively.
Morgan Stanley analysts Chetan Ahya, Derrick Y Kam, Jonathan Cheung and Kelly Wang are expecting a “sharper slowdown” for the trade-oriented economies in Asia, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong this year amid tariff-related uncertainties.
These tariffs are likely to weigh on corporate confidence, which will be reflected in their capital expenditures (capex) and subsequently affect the trade cycle. As such, economies with high goods exports and net exports contributing significantly to GDP are likely to face “greater growth damage”. That said, the analysts say they may see hard data reflecting the slowdown in exports only coming in three to four months’ time, based on their experience during the first trade tensions in 2018 to 2019.
