The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) in Bangladesh recently organised an Economic and Trade Outlook event for its valued clients and regulators, according to a press release.
At the event, Douglas Lippoldt, chief trade economist, HSBC, shared his insights from the latest HSBC Global Research report - ’Asian Trade Prospects-- Navigating turbulent seas’, published in August 2019.
The report puts a spotlight on what factors are driving trade, economies and markets for the rest of the year and the coming ones.
"2019 has been a challenging year for Asian-Pacific trade prospects. The nascent recovery in trade growth during 2017 to 2018 has been stunted by softer global demand and the policy disruption that began in 2018 and has carried on into 2019,” said Lippoldt. HSBC's macroeconomic team forecasts only 0.9 per cent export volume growth in 2019 after healthy annual export growth of 6.6 per cent for the region in 2018.
This deceleration would see export growth in the Asia-Pacific region fall below the forecast for the worldwide average (1.7 per cent), observed Lippoldt. "However, progress in trade reform could enable economies in the region to access untapped economic potential," explained Lippoldt.
"For Bangladesh, the outlook for exports remains bright even amid the global trade tensions,” he said. HSBC macroeconomists expect export growth of 8.0 per cent in 2019 and 7.0% in 2020. “Bangladeshi firms were also the most optimistic about the global trade outlook among the 34 markets in HSBC’s Navigator Survey conducted in late 2018. Around 94 per cent of Bangladeshi businesses reported a positive outlook on global trade, with China, India and Japan cited as the top three markets where they are looking to expand their business over the next three to five years”.
Dr. Md. Akhtaruzzaman, economic adviser (Executive Director - Research), Bangladesh Bank attended the event as a guest speaker.