(Asia) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is forecasting East Asian economies to grow at a healthy 5.2 percent this year with additional acceleration in 2003 off the back of a recovering world economy stimulating regional exports.East Asia for the ADB includes China, South Korea and the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a which experienced a 4.3 percent GDP growth in 2001 and 7.6 growth in 2000.
The ADB has projected GDP growth for 2002 of 7.0 percent in China, 4.5-4.7 percent in South Korea and 3.0-3.5 percent for ASEAN.
Effectively an upward revision on earlier forecasts, GDP growth was likely to be most pronounced in countries with stronger dependence on electronics exports and the US market.