The coronavirus erased about $1.7 trillion from the combined gross domestic product of Asia's largest economies in 2020, according to a report by the Japan Center for Economic Research.
JCER has estimated economic losses from the coronavirus in 15 Asian countries and regions by comparing GDP forecasts made before the pandemic and with GDP growth rates recorded afterward.
Based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund in October 2019, JCER calculated nominal GDP the countries and regions would have achieved if not for COVID - 19. The figure would have hit 6.2% from a year earlier to $29.84 trillion in 2020, but actually registered $1.68 trillion less.
China posted the biggest economic loss at $638 billion among the 15 economies. While suffering a particularly heavy blow from COVID - 19 due to the size of its economy - which accounts for half of Asia's GDP - and its role in global supply chains, China contained the virus early but grew only 2.3% in 2020.
India also suffered a serious blow after growing 6% to 8% until a few years ago. The country posted an economic loss of $480 billion, its second-largest decrease.
Japan, the world's third largest economy after the U.S. and China, logged the third-largest economic loss at $162 billion, as the service sector accounts for a high percentage of its GDP.
Tourism-related industries suffered particularly large declines. According to QUICK-FactSet, JCER looked at sales figures from about 16,000 listed companies in Asia between October-December 2019 - before the pandemic began - and April-June 2021.
Casinos suffered the biggest sales decline at 53%, followed by airlines, which saw sales plunge 49%.
Tourism accounts for 20% of Cambodia's GDP and its economic loss totaled $4 billion. Thailand, which also relies heavily on tourism, saw $71 billion wiped off its GDP. Thai Airways International, the country's flag carrier, filed for bankruptcy in May 2020. Vietnam Airlines is also in serious financial trouble and is panning to restructure, which includes halving its workforce of more than 20,000 and implementing significant pay cuts.
While most Asian economies are struggling with the pandemic, only Taiwan benefited from it. Compared with the pre-coronavirus forecast, Taiwan's GDP increased $44 billion in 2020, as demand for many information technology products such as servers and smartphones grew due to the global spread of stay-at-home consumption and teleworking.
China's GDP in the first half of 2021 recovered to levels nearing pre-coronavirus forecasts, due largely to China's rapid economic recovery and the appreciation of the yuan against the U.S. dollar - events that inflated China's GDP.
The situation remains challenging in Taiwan except for Asia. But in the short term, an infectious slowdown during July-September 2021 is inevitable, as the highly infectious delta variant has spread in parts of the region since July.
Although there have been moves to normalize economies in October - including the easing of tourism restrictions in Thailand and Vietnam - a medium-term negative impact is expected to continue until at least 2022 because of a shortage of personnel and equipment in those countries.
The recovery of the tourism sector is important, especially for Southeast Asia, where most economies are heavily dependent on vacationers. The report says that the cross-border movement of tourists is likely to recover by implementing vaccine passports and sandbox schemes, which limit movement of foreign arrivals and is being tested in Thailand and other countries.