The curious case of Asia’s uneven export momentum

~~SINGAPORE - The much-anticipated synchronised pick-up in global growth now appears to be here, but has someone forgotten to tell Asia’s producers and exporters, ANZ asks in a new briefing paper.

“As we head into the new year, the Asia production and export complex continues to be characterised by a degree of unevenness that sits oddly with the improving external backdrop,” ANZ says.
“This is best characterised by the trade prints we have seen thus far this year. South Korea’s export figures – widely considered a regional bellwether given its timeliness – were much stronger than expected in December. Export data from Malaysia for November and from Taiwan for December were both softer than expected.
“Within these data points, we find considerable divergences across sectors and geographies; developments that add to the sense of unevenness in external demand rather than align with the more uniform improvement in production and exports in 2014 we are forecasting.
“Given these recent developments, we have updated our sensitivity analysis for Emerging Asia to our latest G3 forecasts. One point is strikingly obvious in this analysis – the synchronicity of the G3 upswing we expect in 2014 and 2015. Indeed, if the global economy does evolve as ANZ expects in 2014 to 2015, then the correlation between the G3 economies will be the strongest it has been since the 1960s.” www.live.anz.com (ATI).