Jakarta. Economic think tank AMRO is losing confidence in ASEAN+3’s growth as it expects the group to expand by 4.2 percent this year -- a downgrade compared to its earlier forecast. 

The ASEAN+3 group includes the Southeast Asian bloc’s members, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Korea. 

In its July report, AMRO had already lowered its expectations for ASEAN+3’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2024, down from 4.5 percent to 4.4 percent. AMRO later cut the forecast further to 4.2 percent in its latest report, something that the research body attributed to adjustments for China and Vietnam. Even so, AMRO is optimistic about the ASEAN+3’s expansion for 2025 as it raised its forecasts by 0.1 percentage points.

“Regional growth is forecast to be slightly lower at 4.2 percent in 2024 due to country-specific factors, but to improve to 4.4 percent in 2025,” AMRO wrote in its report.

The report showed lower forecasts across many country-specific growths for 2024.

For instance, AMRO initially thought that the Chinese economy would expand by 5.3 percent this year, but the think tank now expects a slower growth at 5 percent. Vietnam sees a 0.1 percentage point drop to 6.2 percent in the October report. However, Vietnam still retains its position as the expected fastest-growing economy in the ASEAN+3 group for 2024. 

The same goes for Indonesia. AMRO has revised down the forecasts for Indonesia’s growth in 2024, from 5.2 percent estimated in July to 5.1 percent. However, this shows that Indonesia is still expanding within the government’s targeted growth range of around 5 percent. AMRO maintains Indonesia's 2025 growth forecast at 5.2 percent.

The ASEAN bloc is expected to expand 4.7 percent in 2024, down by 0.1 percentage points compared to AMRO’s July forecasts.