ࢀ˜For the 1st time in living memoryࢀ™: IMF expects Asian economy to shrink as it downgrades forecast

The coronavirus outbreak has been very costly to Asian economic development, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said as it revised down its forecast for the region and warned of possible protracted recovery. ࢀœFor the first time in living memory, Asiaࢀ™s growth is expected to contract by 1.6 percentࢀ"a downgrade to the April projection of zero growth,ࢀ Chang Yong Rhee, director of the IMFࢀ™s Asia and Pacific Department, wrote in a blog post. Even the recent positive developments in the epidemic situation in some countries that allowed them to at least partly reopen have not helped to change the gloomy projections….