Anchor: The Asia-Pacific is amid "the most severe contraction in generations," the International Monetary Fund(IMF) has said, as it further downgraded the region's 2020 growth forecast to minus two-point-two percent on Wednesday. Although Asian nations had a head start in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, their varied choices look to be translating into “multispeed” economic recoveries.
Eunice Kim reports. 

Report: Roughly ten months after the coronavirus began affecting the region, the IMF again cut the Asia-Pacific's growth forecast for 2020 on Wednesday - to minus two-point-two percent, a drop of six-tenths of a percentage point from its last projection in June. 

In an online presser, IMF Acting Director for Asia and Pacific Jonathan Ostry called it "the most severe contraction in generations."

[Sound bite: Jonathan Ostry - IMF Acting Director for Asia & Pacific]
"Asia is not alone in suffering a huge contraction. The world is in crisis together. And we will only emerge from it together. This is as true of the health crisis as it is of the economic crisis."

While the world sits in the same boat, the experience has not been uniform.
 
For governments that chose a proactive and thorough response - in virus containment and in monetary and fiscal injections - IMF data suggest their economic positions were relatively more upbeat. 

South Korea's 2020 growth outlook was revised up to minus one-point-nine percent - the slimmest fall among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD). China was the rare case of actual growth with one-point-nine percent, up from the global body's last projection of one percent. 

[Sound bite: Andreas Bauer - IMF Assistant Director of Asia & Pacific]
"Now this said, let me also be frank and acknowledge our forecasts are really subject to much more uncertainty than what is typically the case. Given that we are in the middle of a pandemic and we still don't know how it will evolve." 

In a subsequesnt interview with KBS World Radio on Thursday, IMF Korea Mission Chief Andreas Bauer said the region's average GDP fall of two-point-two percent this year could be masking the "really, really strong recessions" of several COVID-19 impacted Asian states. Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines all have drops of more than five percent this fiscal year, while India's economy stands to shrink by more than ten percent. 

[Sound bite: Andreas Bauer - IMF Assistant Director of Asia & Pacific]
"I think it's pretty clear at this point the pandemic will lead to some permanent changes in the structure of economies. Some sectors will have to shrink... and other sectors will expand."

For the most vulnerable, the IMF's Asia director is calling on governments to strengthen social safety nets - women, the young and workers in “informal sectors.”
 
[Sound bite: Jonathan Ostry - IMF Acting Director for Asia & Pacific]
"Asia's labor markets have been hit hard, especially so for female and younger workers. Inequality in Asia had been rising even before the crisis. And the pandemic is hitting those at the bottom even harder than the rest." 

He also urged a check on debt - be it corporate, household or public liabilities - to keep them from amplifying risk to an uncertain future. 
Eunice Kim, KBS World Radio News.