Korea is likely to maintain a reasonable growth rate, according to David Mann, head of Asia macro research at Standard Chartered Bank, countering reports elsewhere that the economy is headed for a slowdown.

“We certainly have seen weaker calls after the global financial crisis, but Asia has mostly outperformed the global average,” the chief economist told The Korea Herald.

Such an achievement in the region was mostly spearheaded by China’s corporate sector but also by other stable economies such as South Korea, Japan and Singapore, he added.

“Of course, the International Monetary Fund tends to display a more solemn view as to the economic future of Asia but we believe that there are reasons not to go so overboard,” Mann said.

The IMF said in a recent report that the impact of the incoming U.S. key interest rate hike will weigh mostly heavily on South Korea, possibly pulling down its yearly growth rate by up to 1 percent.

“Considering the different economic situations, it is understandable that those located in Europe are more susceptible to pessimism than those in Asia,” he said.

“But Asia, especially its key economies, is not as directly dependent on the global economic trend as it used to be in the past.”

While admitting that China’s economy has slowed down in recent years, Mann defined the current stage as a “transformation process,” claiming that the world’s No. 2 economy is facing short-term pain for the sake of long-term gain.

He also quoted a Standard Chartered report predicting that China’s economy would outgrow that of the United States by 2020.

Korea, too, is expected to remain within the margin of error of the government forecast, according to the report. The Finance Ministry and the Bank of Korea recently respectively estimated the growth rate for 2015 at 4.0 percent and 3.9 percent.

“One significant variable would be the inter-Korean unification, in which case the labor demographics will change totally,” Mann said.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)