Recession Risk Climbs for Some Asian Economies, Survey Shows

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(Bloomberg) -- The risk of recession in a handful of Asian economies is rising as higher prices spur central banks to accelerate the pace of their interest rate hikes, according to the latest Bloomberg survey of economists.

Sri Lanka, which is in the midst of its worst economic crisis ever, has an 85% probability of falling into recession in the next year, up from a 33% chance in the previous survey -- by far the highest increase in the region. Economists also raised their expectations for a chance of recession in New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia and the Philippines to 33%, 20%, 20% and 8%, respectively. Central banks in those places have been raising interest rates to tame inflation.

The probability of recession for several other Asian economies remained unchanged in the survey. Economists see a 20% chance that China will enter recession, and a 25% likelihood that South Korea or Japan will enter one.

Asian economies have largely remained resilient compared to Europe and the United States.

Surging energy prices have hit countries such as Germany and France the most, with a spillover effect impacting the rest of that region, said Steven Cochrane, chief Asia Pacific economist at Moody's Analytics Inc.

In general, Asia's risk of recession is around 20-25%, he said, adding that the odds of the US entering one is around 40%, while Europe stands at 50-55%.

Bloomberg Economics' model puts the chance of a US recession at 38% within the next 12 months, up from around 0% just a few months before. That model incorporates a variety of factors ranging from housing permits and consumer survey data to the gap between 10-year and 3-month Treasury yields.

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