Like China, Taiwan is the only major economy to grow during the pandemic

Growth should reach an estimated of 1.8 per cent by the end of 2020. This positive figure was achieved thanks to rising exports in the first nine months of the year (+ 4.2 per cent). Taiwan’s democratic model is an alternative to China's authoritarian system. South Korea and Japan are in trouble.

 


Taipei (AsiaNews) – Like China, Taiwan is the only major economy to grow in 2020. According to the National Development Council, the Taiwanese cabinet’s policy planning unit, the island’s gross domestic product (GDP) should grow by 1.8 per cent this year.

The positive forecast is mainly due to the good performance of exports. In the first three quarters of the year, export orders for Taiwanese goods increased by US$ 14.8 billion (+4.2 per cent) over the same period of 2019.

If this trend is maintained in the last three months of the year, the authorities have not ruled out reaching 2 per cent growth.

Without imposing draconian political, health and economic control measures, as mainland China did, Taiwan is one the countries that have best dealt with the global health emergency.

China’s GDP is expected to grown by 2.1 per cent by the end of 2020.

South Korea and Japan, the other major Asian economies that managed the pandemic crisis more or less effectively, are in recession with their economies contracting by 1 and 5.8 per cent respectively.