"While China is forecast to grow by 2.0 percent in 2020 – boosted by government spending, strong exports, and a low rate of new COVID-19 infections since March, but checked by slow domestic consumption – the rest of the EAP [East Asia and Pacific] region is projected to contract by 3.5 percent," the report read.
A similar report earlier in the year placed China’s growth forecast at one percent.
The report said that this year's growth rate for the entire region, at 0.9 percent, will be the slowest since 1967. The report attributed this slowdown to the ripple shock of the pandemic, the economic impact of shutdowns and the ensuing global recession.
Furthermore, the World Bank estimated that 38 million people in the region would remain in or be pushed back into poverty as a result of the pandemic.
"COVID-19 is not only hitting the poor the hardest, it is creating ‘new poor.’ The region is confronted with an unprecedented set of challenges, and governments are facing tough choices," Victoria Kwakwa, the vice president for East Asia and the Pacific at the World Bank, was quoted as saying.
The region has largely kept the pandemic from proliferating, as it has in Europe and the Americas, which is considered by experts as a potential advantage in the long term.