A renewed outbreak of the virus is under way, but not all emerging markets are hit equally hard. Bloomberg Economics' ranking of 75 economies shows countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and East Asia performing better than the rest of the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. The GCC (Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar) and Asia (South Korea, China and Taiwan) are performing best. The rest of the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America are struggling under the strain of the pandemic. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have also climbed toward the top of the list, with KSA ranking first and UAE third with the highest vaccination rate in the world. According to Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist at Bloomberg Economics, the GCC has risen to the top of the rankings in the last 30 days partly because vaccination rates are among the highest in the world. He said: "In addition, activity is close to pre-virus levels despite a recent slowdown coinciding with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan." The economies of South Korea, China and Taiwan have consistently ranked highly in Bloomberg's scorecard. Their early virus containment and ample policy space have allowed them to see a robust recovery from the pandemic. Bangladesh has also crept up in the rankings, thanks to a pickup in mobility. Bloomberg Economics' ranking uses a range of social measures, including COVID-19 case rates and fatalities, vaccination progress, economic activity mobility and policy space to assess which countries are most effectively containing COVID-19 cases without enormous damage to their lifestyle or economy. That data is used to calculate a final score, ranking countries based on virus deaths and vaccine doses, and take a simple average of that and the other two metrics. — SG
