Pacific Economies Forecast To Grow By 3.9% In 2016 Amid Rising Global Risks

Most Pacific economies are unlikely to be significantly affected by heightened uncertainty in the global economy, says the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) July 2016 issue of the Pacific Economic Monitor, launched today in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). “Despite significant risks to the global economic outlook, prospects for some of the smaller Pacific economies have improved slightly, reflecting stronger than expected performance in tourism, fisheries, and construction,” said Xianbin Yao, Director General of ADB’s Pacific Department. “This positive news is balanced against continued challenges in some of the region’s larger resource-export dependent economies due to low commodity prices prevailing internationally.” The Monitor, ADB’s flagship economic publication on the Pacific, projects that the economies in the region will grow by an average of 3.9% in 2016—about the same as projected earlier this year in the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2016. This, however, is significantly lower than the 7.0% growth recorded last year, mainly due to fiscal pressures faced by PNG and the impact of the Cyclone Winston on Fiji—the Pacific’s two largest economies. Papua New Guinea continues to face fiscal challenges brought on by weaker-than-projected commodity prices. Growth is seen to slow to 4.3% in 2016 and to moderate further in 2017 (to 2.4%). The outlook for Fiji’s economy is weaker as the full extent of damage and lost production from Cyclone Winston is taken into account. Growth in 2016 is now projected at 2.4%, but is expected to rise to 3.6% next year as the economy recovers.

Source: adb.org
Full Article: http://www.adb.org/news/pacific-economies-forecast-grow-39-2016-amid-rising-global-risks