“Outlook for Asia: Will the US Slowdown Spoil the Party?”

by Dr. Joshua Felman
Thursday, 21 December, 2006

At the seminar on December 21, Dr. Joshua Felman, the Senior Resident Representative for IMF in New Delhi presented the main messages of the recent World Economics Outlook that states that India and China would continue to boom in 2007 and perhaps even in 2008. Although the US economy is likely to slow down by about one percentage point from the current 3.5 per cent, this would not slow down India and China. He said many countries, including the European Union countries and Japan, may also not be impacted. “Once housing and food processing in the US show robustness, the overall economy will recover,” said Dr. Felman. Dr. Felman’s presentation was characterized by an in-depth discussion of household savings behaviour in the US in current years and of the emerging trends in the US housing market. Both these factors, he said, critically impacted the US economic growth.