Special Review: COVID-19 in East Asia: Impacts and Response
Keywords:
COVID-19, ASEAN, ASEAN 3, economic impacts, regional coordinationAbstract
While COVID-19 continues to be a health emergency, it is quickly turning into an economic crisis in most East Asian countries. Measures introduced to contain the pandemic are having wide-ranging economic effects; disrupting tourism and travel, supply chains and labour supply, and feeding into lower economic growth. Rolling recessions producing sharp rises in unemployment and poverty seem inevitable. Although the main responses will be national, both ASEAN and ASEAN+3 should be able to play a bigger role, especially absent global leadership. The impact of economic stimulus measures will be enhanced nationally if they are regionally coordinated. As countries start to ease lockdowns, coordination will be required to minimise risks of recurrence, and to speed up the economic recovery.
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