Thailand and Taiwan have benefited from China's recovery to record unexpectedly strong economic growth in the final quarter of 2009.
Taiwan returned to pre- financial crisis growth levels with its strongest performance in more than five years, according to government statistics released yesterday. Gross domestic product grew 9.2 per cent from a year ago, and 4.2 per cent from the previous quarter, outperforming most Asian economies that have reported GDP figures for the same period.
In spite of the strong recovery in the second half of the year, Taiwan's economy still shrank by 1.8 per cent in 2009. The government expects GDP to grow by 4.7 per cent this year.