HSBC Raises Asia 2010 Growth Forecast to 7.6%

By Jason Clenfield

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc raised its 2010 economic growth forecast for Asia excluding Japan to 7.6 percent from 6.9 percent, led by faster expansions in China, South Korea and Singapore.

“Growth has roared back in Asia, with domestic demand firing on all cylinders and exports accelerating too,” the bank wrote in a report published today.

China will expand 9.5 percent, faster than an earlier forecast for 8.5 percent, HSBC said. Hong Kong’s growth estimate was raised to 3.8 percent from 2.4 percent. South Korea will grow 4.6 percent, versus the 3.6 percent estimated previously, and Singapore will expand 6.5 percent compared with 5.3 percent.

“Besides continued strength in consumption and investment, we expect exports to rebound over the coming quarter, driven by restocking in the West and inter-emerging markets trade,” HSBC economists Robert Prior-Wandesforde and Frederic Neumann wrote in the report.

They said the region’s central banks will begin to raise interest rates. Australia will increase its key rate later this year, and Korea and Taiwan will move in the first quarter of 2010. China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand will following in the second quarter, the report said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Clenfield in Tokyo at jclenfield@bloomberg.net