“Global economic conditions continue to deteriorate as inflation remains uncomfortably high and financial market conditions tighten,” she said, adding that Europe, the United States, Canada and parts of Latin America – are likely to see a recession in the coming months.
The firm added that Southeast Asia and India would benefit from diversifying its trade “away from mainland China.”
In a time of market volatility, India has benefited from having an outlier economy and seeing comparatively robust growth.
India's economy is expected to grow 7.0% in the current financial year, according to the first advance estimates by the National Statistical Office (NSO) released on Friday. With this the country is set to lose the fastest-growing major economy tag. New Delhi had pegged India's growth at 8.7% in the last fiscal year that ended March 31, 2022, according to the Indiatimes.
The projections are much lower than government's earlier forecast of 8-8.5 per cent growth but above the Reserve Bank's projection of 6.8 per cent. If the forecast comes true, India's GDP growth will be lower than Saudi Arabia's expected 7.6 per cent expansion. In fact, India's GDP growth in the July-September quarter at 6.3 per cent was lower than the 8.7 per cent of Saudi Arabia.
Earlier last month, the Reserve Bank of India had lowered the country's GDP (gross domestic product) growth forecast to 6.8 per cent for the current fiscal from 7 per cent earlier, on account of continued geopolitical tensions and tightening of global financial conditions.
The RBI had projected the real GDP growth for 2022-23 at 6.8 per cent, with the third quarter at 4.4 per cent and the fourth at 4.2 per cent. It had pared the growth projection for 2022-23 for the third time in December 2022.
In April 2022, India's central bank had cut the GDP growth estimate from 7.8 per cent to 7.2 per cent, and further lowered it to 7 per cent in September, last year.
The GDP growth in the second quarter of the fiscal slowed to 6.3 per cent from 13.5 per cent in the preceding three months.
UOB maintains Vietnam’s 2023 GDP growth forecast at 6.6%
The Singapore-based United Overseas Bank (UOB) has kept its forecast for Vietnam's GDP growth in 2023 unchanged at 6.6% in line with the official forecast of 6.5%, although growth momentum is likely to be weaker.
UOB experts said that the strong growth thanks to its manufacturing and service industries in 2022 shows Vietnam's resilience after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bank said the inflation rate is likely to remain stable, especially in the first half of 2023 thanks to the flexible management of monetary policy by the State Bank of Vietnam.
At the end of December 2022, the State Bank of Vietnam said that it will operate monetary policy "flexibly" to keep the inflation rate at 4.5% in 2023, aiming to stabilise the currency and foreign exchange markets, reported the vietnamplus.
Regarding the foreign exchange strategy, UOB forecast a upward momentum of VND/USD exchange rate in the four quarters of 2023./.
