This is the year of the ox in Asia. But if the region gets away with a steady and dependable tromp through 2009, it will have done well. More likely, it will spend much of the year battling through thick mud.

Why? After all, the Asian Development Bank says that, excluding Japan – whose $4,300bn (€3,020bn, £2,950bn) economy is likely to shrink for the first time since 2001 – the region will grow at 5.8 per cent. That does not sound too shabby by US and European standards, even if it does not quite match the 9 per cent recorded in 2007, year of the wild – and evidently rampant – boar.