Central bank meetings

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) (Nov 6): We expect BNM to maintain its Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 2.75% during its final meeting for 2025, amidst signs of economic growth resilience and ongoing price stability. The central bank’s pre-emptive 25bps OPR cut in July, aimed at preserving Malaysia’s steady growth path amid contained inflation, appears to be bearing fruit. This was evident as advance GDP growth for 3Q25 surprised positively despite US tariffs (see ‘Malaysia: Stable short-end MGS yields and OPR amid near-term growth resilience). BNM will likely assess the current monetary policy stance as appropriate and supportive of the economy. Therefore, in the absence of a severe and unexpected negative growth shock in the near term, we expect BNM to preserve ammunition and flexibility for further easing, opting for a wait-and-see approach for the time being.

Forthcoming data releases

China: Exports growth is projected to rise by 8.8%yoy in October, driven by strong non-U.S. trade performance. Container ship deadweight tonnage at China’s 20 major ports rose 11.7%yoy to an average of 1.43 million tons per day, while weekly international cargo flights climbed 3.5%yoy, reaching a post-COVID high of 3,680 in October. Amid strengthening trade ties with non-U.S. partners, imports are expected to expand 4.6%yoy in October, with the YTD contraction narrowing to -0.5%. Looking ahead, the China–U.S. negotiations and the recent Trump–Xi meeting has helped ease near-term uncertainty, though the external environment remains challenging amid ongoing trade frictions and transshipment tariffs.

Taiwan: October trade and inflation data are due this week. Exports are expected to maintain solid growth of around 30% y/y, slightly slower than 33.8% in September. Strong AI-related demand for GPUs, graphics cards, and servers continues to support export momentum, while the delay in semiconductor tariffs has encouraged trade front-loading.

Meanwhile, CPI inflation is projected to rise to 1.5% y/y, up from 1.3% in September. The Mid-Autumn Festival, combined with rainy weather conditions, likely pushed up food and services prices, though these effects should be temporary.

Overall, while the inflation data may provide some room for the central bank to cut the policy rate from the current 2.00%, robust trade performance suggests no immediate need for policy easing. We therefore expect the central bank to keep rates unchanged at the December meeting.

South Korea: October inflation is expected to remain above 2% y/y, reflecting effects from the Chuseok festival. Underlying inflation, however, remains subdued amid a modest recovery in consumer demand and the labor market. GDP data released last week showed that the economy expanded by 1.2% QoQ (1.7% y/y) in 3Q, supported by a modest rebound in both private and government consumption.

The central bank’s attention has shifted to property prices, which have risen sharply in the Seoul area since mid-October. Until the government’s property-cooling measures take effect and significantly curb housing prices, the Bank of Korea is likely to stay cautious about additional rate cuts. While we maintain our forecast for a 25bps rate cut in 4Q, the risk of a delay has increased.

Indonesia: Slew of data is due in early-November. We expect growth to be steady at 5% yoy in 3Q vs 1H25 average. Deceleration in activity is likely to be reflected in the qoq pace, where we expect a slowdown from 4% to 1.4% in 3Q. Public expenditure grew at a modest pace, whilst the impact of religious festivities and extended holidays fizzled out in the quarter. Public protests in late-August likely briefly hurt sentiments and confidence, subsequently leading to a change in guard at the Finance Ministry. As we elaborated in Indonesia’s evolving policy mix, the new Finance Minister is expected to fast track expenditure at the central as well as regional government level. Goods exports continued to benefit from frontloaded shipments, rising 10.3% yoy in 3Q, while import growth was modest at 0.9% yoy. Overall, we expect a slight let up in domestic engines in the quarter, while trade likely held the fort. October inflation is expected to be largely steady at 2.6% yoy vs 2.7% month before. 

Philippines: We expect the Philippines’ economy to have slowed down in 3Q25, on the back of political uncertainties (flood control project corruption allegations) and typhoons, which are expected to have hurt sentiments and delayed fresh investment spending. On the other hand, consumption should have benefited from policy easing and soft inflation prints, while trade held ground on frontloading of demand as well as supportive electronics exports. Our forecast is for growth to moderate to 5.2% yoy in 3Q from 5.5% in 2Q. If our forecast is close to the actual release, growth in 1Q-3Q would have averaged 5.4% yoy, a shade below the official annual projection.

Thailand: We expect Thailand’s headline inflation to remain negative for the seventh consecutive month, at -0.7% yoy in October 2025. The ongoing subdued inflation was due to falling energy and raw food prices, amidst a combination of lower global oil prices, government cost-of-living relief measures, and ample food supply, while core inflation has stayed low but positive. The Bank of Thailand’s monetary policy will likely remain accommodative to support the soft economy amidst the absence of upside price pressures.

Vietnam: Vietnam’s economy was likely supported by continued export growth and contained inflation in October 2025. We expect goods exports expansion of 19.5% yoy, extending the 24.7% yoy growth in September, as electronics shipments remained bolstered by ongoing US tariff exemptions on electronics goods, and robust demand for electronics components amidst positive artificial intelligence-related developments. However, with 20% US reciprocal tariffs effective from August, non-electronics likely lost momentum. We expect ongoing manageable headline inflation of 3.1% yoy in October, due to muted pressures from global oil prices, and deflationary spillovers from China that balanced resilient domestic demand.

  Economics Team

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