(Yicai Global) July 6 -- Most Asian economies have done well in controlling the Covid-19 pandemic in its early stages and thus suffered fewer economic losses, and their economic and financial activities have been rebounding more rapidly amid a global recession and great financial fluctuations caused by the coronavirus, producing an ‘Asian miracle,’ said Zhu Min, head of Tsinghua University’s National Institute of Financial Research and the former vice president of the International Monetary Fund.

A seminar jointly organized by IMF, Yicai Research Institute, Yicai Global and Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance took place in Shanghai on July 3. The scale of Asia’s pandemic and diagnosis and mortality rates have stayed low thanks to quick government action in implementing policies and people cooperating and displaying a strong awareness of hygiene, Zhu noted.

Asia has unique advantages, systems and cultures in the post-pandemic world, Zhu stated, adding Asian countries including -- those in Oceania -- can be divided into four sectors, with each having its own mutually-complementary advantages and features.

The developed countries of Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand that contribute 10 percent of the globe’s total gross domestic product provide Asia with capital and technology. China has become the world’s largest commodity consumer market. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is Asia’s most active region, with burgeoning trade and investment. South and Central Asia have a population of 1.8 billion and massive and young human resources.

The largest continent has also been restructuring its technology and industrial chains over the past 15 years. The China-centric Asian vertical supply industrial chain is being shaped and rebuilt based on the traditional European knowledge industrial chain focusing on Germany and half of the American industrial chain centered on the US.

The Asian economy is actually the most correlated. Asia now can seize the opportunity to form a regional, expanded and more inclusive industrial chain centered on itself, which will push the continent to become ever more important after the pestilence and have the opportunity to gradually become the leading force in the world’s economy, finance and even politics, Zhu said.

Editor: Ben Armour