Impact of COVID-19 on Asian Economies and Policy Responses

On March 12th 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spreading of the new virus, 2019-nCoV, a pandemic. In Asia, the virus, more commonly referred to as COVID-19, has been spreading since the end of December. To contain the public health threat, almost all countries enforced a variety of measures, including lockdowns, to minimize face-to-face human interactions between the infected and the susceptible.While these vigilant measures save lives, they also generate a substantial negative economic shock that immediately halts demand and significantly disrupts supply, global production value chain and trade. The consequences are dire — considerable decline in output, massive surge in unemployment, countless bankruptcy cases, and unrelentless worries over financial stability. The result, a worldwide economic setback, is more severe than that experienced during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008–2009.Asia's experiences with COVID-19 precede that in the West. This fortuitous timing allows Asia to share its learnings drawn from experiences to benefit the world.The Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research's (ABFER) community has gathered a collection of insights to inform the public. Besides providing access to research on the pandemic conducted in Asia, these commentaries offer comprehensive information on the effects of the pandemic, the effectiveness of measures employed to contain it and the subsequent economic impacts from such implementation. With granular analyses of government policies and their associated economic rescue packages, these commentaries elucidate the hard trade-offs between public health protection and economic security. Finally, the commentaries address the broader impact of the pandemic on international trade, global value chains and society.Contents: Introduction: COVID-19: Collective Learning from the East (Sumit Agarwal, Zhiguo He and Bernard Yeung) Containing COVID-19 and the Effects: Economic Effects of Lockdown in China (Qin Chen, Zhiguo He, Chang-Tai Hsieh and Zheng (Michael) Song) A First Look at China's Consumption After Coronavirus (Wenlan Qian) Public Policy Tools to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic: Health Versus Economy (Hanming Fang) Saving Lives Versus Saving Livelihoods: Can Big Data Technology Solve the Pandemic Dilemma? (Kairong Xiao) Mitigating COVID-19 Risks to Sustain Growth (Harrison Hong, Neng Wang and Jinqiang Yang) Pandemic and Panic: Government as the Supplier of Last Resort (Yi Huang, Chen Lin, Pengfei Wang and Zhiwei Xu) Government Policies: Six Lessons for Public Health in the Fight Against COVID-19 (Hanming Fang) Containing the Virus or Reviving the Economy? Survey from China Provides an Answer (Keyang Li, Yu Qin, Jing Wu and Jubo Yan) Dealing With a Liquidity Crisis: Economic and Financial Policies in China During the Coronavirus Outbreak (Zhiguo He and Bibo Liu) Policy Rx for the Economy: Cash or Credit? (Deborah Lucas) The State as Insurer of Last Resort (Joseph Cherian and Bernard Yeung) Singapore's Policy Response to COVID-19 (Danny Quah) Singapore's Coordinated Battle Against the Pandemic (Weina Zhang and Ruth Tan) Ten Keys in Beating Back COVID-19 and the Associated Economic Pandemic (Shang-Jin Wei) Heuristics in Policymaking: It's Time to Figure Out What Drives Policy Uncertainty (Xiao Ji, Mengyu Wang and Hong Zhang) What Comes to Mind: Some Reflections on COVID-19 (Yueran Ma) Implications on International Credit and Trade: The COVID-19 Pandemic Exposes Asian Banks' Vulnerability to US Dollar Funding (Cyn-Young Park and Peter Rosenkranz) The Impact of COVID-19 on Asia and the Future of Global Supply Chains (Bert Hofman) International Trade Has Suffered a One-Two Punch. Can It Recover After COVID-19? (Davin Chor) COVID-19 in the Global Production Network (Ben Charoenwong) Post-COVID-19 Reconfiguration of the Global Value Chains and China (Hanming Fang and Bernard Yeung) Concluding Remarks — A Post-COVID-19 World: Post-COVID-19, How Will We Be Better? (Danny...