The trade war between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, remains among the biggest risks to Asia's economy next year, according to forecasts from banks in Asia, the U.S., and Europe.

Gross domestic product grew more slowly in most regional economies during the July to September quarter as the trade war began taking a toll on exports; Combined GDP growth for the five large Southeast Asian economies fell to 4.5% from 5.5% in the previous quarter.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has forecast the slowdown will continue for the five countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand — with growth falling to 4.8% in 2019, down from 5.0% in 2018 and 5.1% in 2017.

"The list of risk factors is just too long to mention," Mohamed Faiz Nagutha, the bank's Southeast Asia economist, told reporters. Among the obstacles he cited, U.S.-China trade tensions, China's economic slowdown and the possibility of more interest rate increases by the U.S. Federal Reserve than the market anticipates, reported Nikkei News.

Below are some of the risks in other emerging Asian countries;

India

The shock resignation on Dec. 10 of Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel and his swift replacement added a heavy dose of uncertainty to the investment climate after a tense public fight over policy; RBI is likely to shift to dovish tone under new governor, said Abhishek Gupta at Bloomberg Economics

The Rupee remains Asia’s worst performing currency this year, by far, and the RBI shakeup raises questions about whether policymakers will be able to act independently

General elections loom for sometime in March or April and state elections this month point to less favorable results for Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Suresh Tantia, an investment strategist at Credit Suisse in Singapore, said Indian equities haven’t priced in political risk, and a coalition government replacing Modi would make the outlook for current reforms uncertain

One bright spot for India is cheaper oil prices, which are taking away some pain for policymakers. They had to get creative earlier this year when costs of the nation’s biggest import rocketed

Indonesia

Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has been rewarded for its aggressive monetary policy stance, with the rupiah recovering to about 14,600 against the dollar after reaching a more than two-decade low of 15,238 in October

President Joko Widodo faces an April re-election battle against his old rival Prabowo Subianto, whose economic policies are yet to be fully outlined

Indonesia’s ease-of-doing-business ranking slipped to 73 this year while others in the region gained; attracting steady flows of investment will be critical to completing a swath of planned infrastructure projects and retaining interest among foreign investors across other industries

Philippines

Inflation that’s surged this year far beyond the central bank’s target range has shown some initial signs of easing, with more likely to come as oil prices fall; none of the 18 analysts in the Bloomberg survey see the central bank raising its benchmark interest rate.

One test for officials’ ability to rein in inflation, and to soothe consumers who are more pessimistic than at any time in four years, will be their ability to help stabilize prices for rice; legislation set for President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature should ease restrictions to damp costs that hovered near all-time highs this year

Faster price growth this year has proven more widespread than food and fuel, with core CPI also on the rise; there might yet be some more structural inflation at work and ahead of the May 2019 midterm elections

Credit growth that’s running more than twice the pace of economic expansion is pumping into a debt bubble, a red flag in the view of Morgan Stanley’s Deyi Tan

Thailand

Ruling military regime lifted a ban on political activity ahead of a general election on Feb. 24, which the Election Commission confirmed as the date for the vote to be held; the path of policies, including on massive infrastructure projects, could be in flux if the government changes hands

Thailand’s solid economic fundamentals could be undercut by sagging agricultural prices, bringing pain to a sector that typically makes up more than 5 percent of growth; officials have planned to provide some financial cushion for farmers

High household debt -- at 77.5 percent of GDP in the second quarter — is also pressuring consumers, Somchai Jitsuchon, a member of the Bank of Thailand’s monetary policy committee, told Bloomberg in November

The bubbling mortgage debt has been on the radar of the policy makers, who recently tightened lending rules to stem debt run-up

Tourism, which makes up about about a fifth of the economy, is yet to recover from a downturn in Chinese visitors in the wake of a July boat incident in Phuket

While most central banks in the region have had to hike interest rates to stem investment outflows, Thai officials are navigating a trickier debate around when, and by how much, to build policy space from a near-record-low 1.5 percent benchmark rate

The U.S. bank still believes Washington and Beijing will resolve their differences. But the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2019 could be the "softest patch" in the world's second-largest economy before China begins to recover in the second half of next year, Nagutha said. That could hamper growth in Southeast Asia.

Despite the cooling of U.S.-China tensions, medium-term structural issues such as Beijing's "Made in China 2025" high-tech manufacturing initiative and the growing competition between the two countries in high-tech industries are "not going to go away anytime soon,"

Still, equity markets in emerging Asia are expected to perform better next year, after the battering they took in 2018, the Swiss bank said. "The emerging market is looking pretty cheap," said Credit Suisse's Asia-Pacific chief investment officer, John Woods.

As the earnings outlook for U.S. companies darkens and the dollar weakens, investors will look elsewhere for opportunities, Woods said. The bank said stock markets in China, Singapore, and Indonesia all have high upside potential.

Political risk, meanwhile, remains a major threat in some countries, such as Thailand and Indonesia, due to uncertainty over upcoming elections.