Is Asia a bouncy, bouncy Tigger? Or, like the proverbial dead cat, are Asian tigers on a merely temporary upward trajectory? Certainly, Asia's tigers and, if you will bear with the zoological references, its canaries, too, have done better recently. Stock markets have leapt, in some cases by as much as 50 per cent above the depths plumbed after Lehman Brothers vaporised. Net portfolio investment into the region is running at a pace not seen in five years. Yields on Asian bonds have narrowed.
More important than market froth – who, these days, trusts what the markets have got to say, anyway? – real economic data have been a bit brighter. That suggests, to those of sunny disposition at least, that the worst may already be over for several Asian economies.
The trends are still turbid. But look at the canaries, those export-reliant economies whose near-death rattles late last year pointed to a collapse in global demand. In the last quarter of 2008, Taiwan suffered export declines of 40 per cent. Shipments are still falling, but more moderately. Although April was bad, the previous period saw month-on-month improvements.