An economic downturn induced by the cooling Chinese economy, ongoing troubles in the eurozone, and a fragile recovery in the US have caused Standard & Poors Ratings Services to lower its earlier projection for economic growth rates for Asia Pacific.

The rating firm cut base case forecasts of 2012 real GDP growth by about half a percentage point for China to 7.5%; Japan to 2.0%; Korea to 2.5%; Singapore to 2.1%; and Taiwan to 1.9%.

For Australia, the forecast is marginally down to 3.0% from 3.2%.

The forecasts for other Asian economies remain unchanged except for the Philippines, which went to 4.9% from 4.3%, reflecting the ongoing strength of that domestic economy.

The new forecast is published Tuesday by Standard & Poor's titled, "Asia-Pacific Feels the Pressure of Ongoing Global Economic Uncertainty".

"Our lower forecast for China recognises that the central government had elected not to inject an economic stimulus of a size and speed necessary for an 8% growth rate. It appears that the approach by the Chinese authorities remains influenced by the unpleasant experience of the inflationary effect, particularly on real estate prices, of the stimulus they initiated in late 2008-2009," said S&P credit analyst Andrew Palmer.

In turn, the China slowdown has a flow-on effect to the export-oriented Asian economies of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and the trading port cities of Hong Kong (in particular) and Singapore. The slowdown in China and the economies in the Eurozone and US have also resulted in lower commodity prices.

Naturally, any worsening of the economic conditions in the Eurozone will increase contagion risk for Asia Pacific, given the region's_particularly the open economies_sensitivity to capital flows and trade, concluded Mr Palmer.