Pacific island economies hit by global slump

Countries in the Pacific region will see economic growth sharply decline from 7.0 percent, recorded last year, to an average of 3.9 percent in 2016, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In its Pacific Economic Monitor of July 2016, the ADB attempted to put a positive gloss on the figures, claiming the region was unlikely to be “significantly affected by heightened uncertainty in the global economy.” Some Pacific economies improved slightly last year, it said, reflecting stronger than expected performance in tourism, fisheries and construction. However, international growth forecasts for 2016 have been lowered to 3.1 percent, indicating a turn towards stagnation and slump, highlighted by slowdowns in China and Britain and poor growth figures in the US. The ADB’s Pacific Department director Xianbin Yao warned of “risks” in the global economic outlook and continued “challenges” for the Asia-Pacific region’s larger resource-export dependent economies, due to low commodity prices. The World Bank previously noted that in the wake of the 2008 global crash, the Pacific’s low-income countries were among those hit by shocks from slower world export growth, reduced remittances and lower export prices.

Source: wsws.org
Full Article: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/17/paci-a17.html