Covid-19 may bring CLMV growth to new lows: Maybank Kim Eng

THE Covid-19 pandemic is putting severe growth pressure on the CLMV economies -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam - and may cause the region's growth to slow to a historical low, according to a Maybank Kim Eng report on April 28.

Analysts Linda Liu and Chua Hak Bin forecast CLMV gross domestic product growth to slow sharply to 3 per cent in 2020, down from 6.9 per cent in 2019, before recovering to 6.5 per cent in 2021.

Vietnam is expected to do better than the rest with 3.6 per cent growth, thanks to a more diversified economic structure, and a healthier fiscal position and macro fundamen-tals - though that figure is still a sharp fall from 7 per cent growth in 2019.