the asian development bank has cut its growth forecasts over the next two years for developing countries in asia as the regions recovery is challenged by the russiaukraine war accelerated monetarypolicy tightening and chinas covid19 lockdowns the manilabased multilateral bank said thursday that although the impact of covid19 is waning in most of the regionwith the notable exception of chinathe economic fallout from russias invasion of ukraine has increased it projects 2022 gross domestic product growth of 46 versus 52 predicted in april it trimmed its forecast for 2023 to 52 from 53 developing asia comprises 46 adb members including china south korea and india it excludes japan australia and new zealand the adb lowered its 2022 gdp forecasts for the east asia subregioncomprising hong kong china korea and taiwanas well as south asia but it raised southeast asias slightly as postcovid reopenings boost domestic demand east asia was dragged down primarily by the worsening outlook for china following dual hits from new covid19 clusters and continued instability in the housing market the adb expects chinas 2022 growth to come in well below beijings target of around 55 the bank revised its forecast for the country to 40 from 50 assuming a gradual recovery in household consumption a stabilizing property sector a pickup in infrastructure investment in the second half and government measures to boost credit supply another threat to the region comes from inflation faced with rocketing commodity and fuel prices central banks the world over are tightening policy and monetary authorities in developing asia are increasingly following suit the adb said raising interest rates to counteract inflationary headwinds and reduce external pressures even as growth remains below prepandemic trends the bank raised its 2022 and 2023 inflation forecasts for developing asia to 42 from 37 and to 35 from 31 respectively to factor in higher fuel and food prices though much of central asia is grappling with doubledigit inflation and indias is sharply above target at 7 the adb reckons that on the whole regional inflation remains moderate on average and much lower than elsewhere in the world for the remainder of 2022 the bank expects internal risks from the lingering effect of chinas lockdowns on supply chains as well as the countrys economic slowdown externally it points to sluggish global growth surging food prices worsening fallout from the war in ukraine and policy headwinds the aggressive monetary tightening by the fed and other major central bankseven if largely anticipatedcould damage growth and rattle financial markets in the region it said