Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO)
According to preliminary calculations based on JETRO's econometric model, the economic turmoil caused by the Asian currency crisis has restricted world trade in 1997 in U.S. dollar terms (on a nominal export basis) by 5.2% in comparison with pre-crisis forecasts (Table 10).
(1) Economic recovery in East Asia is expected to be export led, but the "crisis in the financial system" is making it hard for exporters to raise funds. Moreover, the East Asian economies have a high intra-regional export ratio (38.7% in 1997), and the economic slump in the region is itself hindering the expansion of exports creating a negative chain reaction (Table 23-2).
(2) With respect to trade outside the East Asian region, the currency crisis has had a major impact on Japan, which has high export and import ratios for the region, but a more limited effect on the U.S. and EU, which have relatively low export and import ratios. Whereas Japanese exports to East Asia fell 1.9% year on year in 1997, exports from the U.S. and Europe (U.K., Germany and France) rose 6.6.% and 3.8%, respectively. However, exports from Japan, the U.S. and Europe alike have continued to fall year on year from the end of 1997, and decreases are forecast for 1998 (Table 11).
(3) JETRO has estimated the effects of the Asian currency crisis on world trade and the economies of East Asia, Japan and the U.S. on a yearly basis using the JETRO-WEIS world econometric model. (The "influence" of the crisis was defined as the differential between pre-crisis forecasts and the actual situation.) The results show that the economic turmoil caused by the Asian currency crisis caused the value of world trade in 1997 (nominal exports in U.S. dollar terms) to fall short of forecasts by 5.2% (Table 10). An examination of the effects by country and region reveals that the impact on the ASEAN4 has been most serious, where it caused a 12.9% drop in exports to the rest of the world and a 15.2% drop in imports in 1997.