Major economies in Southeast Asia expect to grow this year and next, but more slowly than before the pandemic. New local outbreaks and tightened lockdowns have prompted economic downgrades, with most countries reporting their economies contracted in the first three months of the year.
The prolonged Covid-19 pandemic is clouding economic projections for Southeast Asia, with most countries not expected to return to pre-pandemic growth levels for several years.
The Philippines will see the largest decline in average annual gross domestic product growth in the three years ending 2022 – more than five percentage points – compared to 2019, the last full year before the outbreak, according to median estimates of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
