6 Combinations of growth and openness observed in various economies are indicated by red squares for a number of Asian countries and by black dots for several non-Asian countries. The exhibit shows that countries most open to trade (those located further to the right in the figure) suffered, on average, the greatest declines in growth relative to trend.
The most extreme cases are Hong Kong and Singapore, shown to the far right; the economies of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia, which are also very open, suffered significant growth deficits as well. Indeed, the GDP contractions in some Asian economies during that period rivaled those during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.