APO Databook Highlights Asia’s Productivity, Economic Growth Trends

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 (Bernama) -- The Asian Productivity Organization (APO) has released the 19th edition of the APO Productivity Databook, providing harmonised comparisons of Asia’s economic growth and productivity from 1970 through 2024, with projections through 2035.

The 2026 edition presents economic growth and labour productivity indicators for 38 Asian economies, comprising the 21 APO member economies (APO21) and 17 nonmember economies, collectively referred to as Asia38.

For APO member economies, the Databook reports that average annual growth in per-hour labour productivity moderated from 2.9 per cent (2015–2019) to 2.5 per cent (2019–2024), while average annual total factor productivity (TFP) growth remained at 1.0 per cent in both periods.

Built on the APO Productivity Database 2026, the Databook develops full productivity accounts for APO21 together with seven nonmember economies, namely Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, the People’s Republic of China, the Maldives, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia. Together, these 28 economies are referred to as Asia28.

APO in a statement said Saudi Arabia is included in the full accounts for the first time, while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are newly covered in the broader labour productivity indicators.

The 2026 edition incorporates revisions to official national accounts and related statistics released up to May 2026, while the APO Productivity Database 2026 incorporates quality-adjusted labour input estimates from the Asia Quality-adjusted Labor Input Database 2026 and stock estimates of land and mineral and energy resources from the Asia Natural Resources Database 2026.

According to the Databook, Asia38’s gross domestic product (GDP) reached US$40.3 trillion in 2024 at current exchange rates, 37 per cent larger than that of the United States. Asia38’s real GDP grew by an average of 3.8 per cent per year in 2019–2024, with China and India contributing 1.8 and 0.8 percentage points, respectively. (US$1 = RM4.08)

In addition, several Asia28 economies recorded strong recent productivity growth, with per-hour labour productivity growing by 3.7 per cent per year in 2019–2024. The highest country growth rates were recorded in China at 5.8 per cent, Vietnam at 4.5 per cent, India at 4.4 per cent and Bangladesh at 3.9 per cent.

The Databook also stated that capital was the main driver of Asia28’s economic growth, accounting for 57 per cent of growth over 2000–2024, while provisional estimates showed Asia38 accounted for 50 per cent of world final energy consumption and 60 per cent of world carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion in 2024.

-- BERNAMA