Regional Briefing - Asia Pacific - January 2022

State of the Region:

Asia Pacific

IATA Economics

January 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

1

Economics

GDP growth, exchange rates, oil & jet fuel price

• The trade-weighted US dollar (USD) index rose by 0.7% in December versus November on the back of recovering US economy and expectations about US Federal Reserve interest rate hikes in 2022. Among the key regional currencies, the AUD ended the month up 2.1% while the JPY lost 1.5% against the USD.
• The JPY and THB were the weakest currencies in the region in 2021, depreciating by nearly 12% against the USD.
• Jet fuel and Brent crude oil prices fell sharply in December due to concerns about the impact of Omicron disruptions on global fuel demand. However, despite the year-end weakness, the average 2021 Brent crude oil and jet fuel prices was 63% and 68% respectively higher than in 2020. Moreover, the prices started to soar again in recent weeks amid optimism that the Omicron impact will be short-lived.

GDP growth

% change on a yr ago	2020	Q1 2021	Q2 2021	Q3 2021
India	-7.0	1.6	20.1	8.4
Japan	-4.5	-1.8	7.3	1.1
Indonesia	-2.1	-0.7	7.1	3.5
Korea	-0.9	1.9	6.0	4.0
Australia	-2.2	1.4	9.5	3.9
Thailand	-6.2	-2.6	7.6	-0.2
Malaysia	-5.6	-0.5	16.1	-4.5
Philippines	-9.3	-4.0	12.1	7.1
Vietnam	2.6	3.7	4.7	-6.2
Singapore	-5.4	1.5	15.2	7.1
World*		-3.5	2.9	11.6	4.7

2 Source: Refinitiv Eikon, S&P Platts

Exchange rates

end of period, # per US$	% YTD 2021	Oct-21	Nov-21Dec-21
US$ broad index	3.5%	114.1	115.0	115.8
Japanese yen (JPY)
	-11.5%	114.0	113.5	115.2
			1.33	1.41	1.38
Australian dollar (AUD)	-6.8%
Sth Korean won (KRW)	-9.4%	1174	1187	1189
Indian rupee (INR)		-1.7%	74.9	75.2	74.3
			14168	14323	14253
Indonesian rupiah (IDR)	-1.4%
Thai baht (THB)	-11.5%	33.2	33.7	33.4
			4.14	4.21	4.17
Malaysian ringgit (MYR)	-3.6%
Philippine pesso (PHP)	-6.2%	50.4	50.4	51.0
Vietnamese dong (VND)	1.3%	22752	22694	22790
Singapore dollar (SGD)
-6.2%	1.35	1.37	1.35

Oil and fuel price

US$/barrel (period ave.)	2021	Oct-21	Nov-21	Dec-21
Crude oil (Brent)	70.9	83.9	80.9	74.7
Jet fuel	77.7	95.6	91.8	87.1

Purchasing Managers' Index

• The manufacturing PMIs ticked down across the three key economies that we regularly track for the Asia Pacific region but remained firmly in the territory associated with manufacturing expansion (more positive responses in the PMI survey than negative). The fall in PMIs was driven by a cocktail of supply chain issues, cost pressures and softer manufacturing demand.

Purchasing Managers' Index - Manufacturing

50=no change, seasonally adjusted

60

55

50

45

40

35

30

25

2015	2016		2017	2018		2019	2020	2021	2022
			India				Indonesia				Japan

3 Source: Markit

Passenger market

• Air-travelrecovery continued in November ahead of the Omicron outbreak, but the traffic improvement was smaller than in the previous months. The industry-wide revenue passenger-kilometres (RPKs) fell by 47.0% versus November 2019, compared with a 48.9% contraction in October.
• Asia Pacific airlines reported a faster rate of RPK decline in November compared with October, at 69.8% and 65.8% respectively versus 2019. The deterioration was driven by developments in domestic China' RPKs. Traffic in the other key regional domestic markets improved. As for international air-travel, Asia Pacific carriers continued to lag the rest of the industry in November due to elevated travel restrictions on many key routes.

Revenue passenger-kilometres (RPKs)

% ch vs.the same period in 2019	2020	Sep-21	Oct-21	Nov-21
Region (registration basis)
Asia Pacific	-62.0	-68.4	-65.8	-69.8
World	-65.8	-53.2	-48.9	-47.0
Routes (segment basis)
India domestic	-55.7	-40.5	-27.0	-17.1
Japan domestic	-55.1	-66.8	-50.2	-37.5
Australia domestic	-68.1	-77.8	-78.5	-71.6
Asia - Europe	-79.0	-86.8	-86.3	-83.4
Within Asia	-84.1	-97.3	-97.0	-96.1
Asia - Nth America	-80.1	-88.4	-89.3	-85.7
Asia - Middle East	-73.4	-74.6	-71.6	-66.9
S/w Pacific - N/S America	-74.0	-97.5	-96.6	-93.3
Asia - Africa	-79.7	-91.5	-91.9	-92.2

Growth in passenger volumes (RPKs), by

RPKs, % change vs. Nov 2019

region

Asia		Middle	Latin	North
Pacific	Africa	East	Europe AmericaAmericaIndustry
			-27.5%	-18.8%
			-39.4%	-47.0%
	-55.1%	-52.6%
-69.8%

4 Source: IATA Monthly Statistics

Air cargo market

• Growth in industry-wide cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs) slowed in November due to supply chain issues. CTKs were 3.7% above their November 2019 levels, after rising 8.2% in October versus October 2019.
• Airlines based Asia Pacific reported a 1.1% CTKs growth compared with 2019 - a modest deterioration from a 2.0% annual expansion recorded in October. The weaker growth outcomes compared with October were recorded across both domestic and international markets.

Cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs)

% ch vs.the same period in 2019	2020	Sep-21	Oct-21	Nov-21
Region (registration basis)
Asia Pacific	-14.9	-1.5	2.0	1.1
World	-9.9	7.6	8.2	3.7
Routes (segment basis)
Asia - Europe	-10.4	-0.2	6.5	2.0
Asia - Nth America	7.5	27.1	28.2	23.4
Within Asia	-19.6	-3.2	-0.9	-3.5
Asia - Middle East	-6.3	21.3	14.7	8.0
S/w Pacific - N/S America	-29.6	-33.7	-31.1	-32.1
Asia - Africa	9.0	36.8	25.5	12.5

Growth in cargo volumes (CTKs), by region

CTKs, % change vs. Nov 2019

					13.3%
		0.3%	1.1%	3.4%		3.7%
	-0.1%
-12.8%
Latin	Africa	Europe	Asia	Middle	North	Industry
America			Pacific	East	America

5 Source: IATA Monthly Statistics