Summary:

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, good exports of the ASEAN-6 countries collapsed dramatically. Their exports reached their troughs in the second quarter of 2020 when the government imposed the strictest policies following exponential rises in COVID-19 cases. However, the exports bounced back surprisingly quickly as the situation improved.  

Highlights:

• Among the ASEAN-6 countries, Vietnam experienced the largest increase in exports since the first quarter of 2018.
• At its trough in the second quarter of 2020, Singapore’s export fell by 43.5% and the Philippines saw a 30% decline compared to the last quarter of 2019, more sharply than the other four countries. The Philippines also imposed the strictest containment measures among the ASEAN-6 countries.
• The exports of all ASEAN-6 countries have begun recovering as the containment measures were lifted.
• Vietnam’s export overpassed its pre-pandemic level in 2019 quarter 4 by 14.5% in the third quarter of 2020, a very rapid rebound compared with the other five countries whose exports nearly recovered to the pre-pandemic levels during the same period. Singapore was an exception to this trend when its exports only recovered to the pre-pandemic levels in 2020 quarter 4.
• Data Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics and Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index (Hale et al., 2021). The quarterly stringency index is the average of the daily Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index. The stringency index is a composite measure based on nine response indicators including school closures, workplace closures, travel bans, etc., and rescaled to a value from 0 to 100 (100 = strictest).

Hale, T., Angrist, N., Goldszmidt, R. et al. A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker). Nat Hum Behav 5, 529–538 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01079-8

Article By BANH, Thi Hang

Graphic By GE, Yixuan