EM Activity Tracker shows resilience but signs of cooling

Though global recession fears are mounting, our newly developed emerging markets activity trackers show most EMs are now outperforming compared to their historical economic activity growth. China remains an exception, with activity still sub-par.

What you will learn:

• EMs are not only outperforming China but have proven more resilient than advanced economies in the face of the current global shocks. But after an overall strong Q2, our activity trackers – based on monthly indicators including construction, industrial production, energy consumption, retail and car sales, and services output – show a notable slowdown in June and July.
• EMs are a more heterogeneous club than ever. Our trackers point to the greatest divergence among large EMs seen in the past decade, owing to commodity prices, trade disruption from Russia’s war on Ukraine, inflation, and Covid policies.
• Emerging Asia’s protracted recovery is finally on track despite global headwinds. Benefitting from easing Covid restrictions, commodity exporters Indonesia and Malaysia are performing strongly, Thailand is picking up some momentum, whereas the Philippines still lags.