Singapore, January 8:

Southeast Asia’s key economies are in for robust growth this year, with Vietnam on track to catch up to its wealthier neighbours but Indonesia hobbled by lingering domestic issues, analysts say.

They say risks of a bird flu pandemic, higher interest rates and volatile oil prices remain but regional economies are better prepared than before to withstand any adverse impact.

Singapore, the region’s most advanced economy, is expected to continue last year’s strong growth momentum, while the Malaysian and Thai economies are also forecast to be on firm footing.

The Philippines is expected to remain buoyant, thanks to the billions of dollars in remittances by overseas Filipino workers, the analysts said at a forum organised by the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) last week.

Song Seng Wun, a regional economist with CIMB-GK Research, expects Singapore’s economy to expand by seven per cent this year and about five per cent over the next two years ‘on the back of sustained regional and global growth.’ The 2006 forecast is well above the government’s growth target of three to five per cent for gross domestic product (GDP), the total value of all goods and services produced in the country.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the city-state’s economy grew by a better-than-expected 5.7 per cent in 2005. “We are seeing more broad-based growth, especially within the services-producing sector,” Song said, “After seven years of decline, the construction sector should return to the black from 2006 onwards.”

He expects the Philippines to achieve 4.6 to 4.8 per cent GDP growth this year, buoyed by foreign worker remittances, which accounted for 11 per cent of GDP and 18 per cent of current account receipts in the first half of 2005. The country has about 10 million citizens working overseas.

Malaysia’s economy should grow five to six per cent this year from an expected 5.3

per cent expansion in 2005 due to a recovery in external demand and sustained domestic demand, Song said.

In neighbouring Thailand, Supavud Saicheua, managing director of research group

Phatra Securities, forecast that country’s economy to grow by 4.5 per cent this year from a projected 4.3 per cent in 2005.

Vietnam’s rising economic star should also provide a bright spot for the the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-member regional bloc. Adam McCarty, the chief economist of Hanoi-based Mekong Economics, said Vietnam’s GDP is expected to have grown at a blistering 8.4 per cent in 2005 and will continue to expand above eight per cent this year.

“I don’t know if ‘tiger’ is the right label, but Vietnam certainly is a developing country on the path to catching up with the richer ASEAN countries,” he said, “In macro-economic trends, Vietnam is exceptionally stable even relative to other ASEAN countries.”

ASEAN’s biggest member, Indonesia, should grow by five to 5.7 per cent this year, according to the country’s central bank. While this may seem respectable, it is not enough to make a significant impact on reducing poverty and unemployment, Indonesian business executive Noke Kiroyan said.