THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF COUNTRIES IN THE SOUTH EAST ASIA REGION IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ERAA Comparative Descriptive Analysis of Economic Performance, Policy Responses, and Recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic generated an unprecedented economic shock across Southeast Asia through public-health restrictions, disruptions to production and logistics, declining international travel, weaker household demand, financial uncertainty, and interruptions to global and regional value chains. This article examines the economic growth performance of Southeast Asian countries during the pandemic era, with particular attention to the contraction in 2020 and the initial recovery in 2021–2022. The study uses a comparative descriptive approach based exclusively on secondary sources published between 2020 and 2022, including peer-reviewed journal articles and contemporaneous reports from international and regional institutions. The analysis indicates substantial heterogeneity across countries. The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia experienced sharp contractions in 2020, while Vietnam maintained positive growth. The ASEAN-10 average contracted by approximately 3.2 percent in 2020 before recovering to about 3.0 percent in 2021 and an estimated 5.2 percent in 2022. The results suggest that differences in economic performance were associated with the intensity and duration of containment measures, tourism and service-sector exposure, domestic-market size, international production networks, fiscal and monetary policy capacity, and the speed of vaccination and reopening. The evidence also indicates that the pandemic temporarily weakened the convergence process among ASEAN economies because less developed members were often more vulnerable to the shock. The article concludes that economic resilience in Southeast Asia requires coordinated health and economic policy, stronger social protection, digital transformation, diversified production networks, and deeper regional cooperation.