Asian Investors Gain Confidence in Equities
Asian stock markets saw strong gains in Monday trading, erasing much of the losses suffered in August as a number of encouraging data points emerged from China, Japan, and Ukraine.
Category: Asia
Can Asia Tackle Its Inequality Problem?
While emerging Asia continues to achieve a stunning performance in poverty reduction, the gap between rich and poor keeps widening too. How sustainable is this poverty reduction in the face of rising inequality?
Why Central Asia Needs Economic Integration
Central Asia has for centuries been seen as a neglected Russian “backyard,” but international interest in the region has increased over the last two decades because of its vast stores of energy and natural resources. But to achieve a brighter future the region must pursue economic integration.
China’s Quest To Integrate With Southeast Asia: A Win-Win Relationship?
China has been rapidly expanding its efforts to connect politically and economically with Southeast Asia – particularly in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). While China is benefiting more their relationship with the GMS at the moment, the GMS will be able to achieve greater sustainable development as long as they are more strategic and selective in dealing with their big neighbour in the north.
Why China & Japan Need American Shale
Thanks to the advent of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the U.S. is expected to be the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas next year, eclipsing production in Russia and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, U.S. energy exports to Asia have grown by a third this year, with greater demand coming not just from Japan – a traditional buyer of U.S. fuel – but from China as well.
Asia Struggling To End Poverty Despite Rapid Economic Growth: Study
More than 660 million people in Asia still live in extreme poverty despite the region’s recent economic gains, revealed a new study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday, highlighting the need for Asian states to make growth more inclusive.
China Warns US of Rising Japanese Nationalism
China’s ambassador to the United States on Wednesday said that while Washington is concerned about stability in region, a rise in Japanese nationalism is counterproductive and hinted that Washington should not offer Japan encouragement in its disputes with China over the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China, which lie atop possibly large energy reserves.
East Asia Criminal Gangs Earn $90 Billion A Year: Report
Crime syndicates in East Asia and the Pacific are generating nearly $90 billion annually from illicit trade activities such as fake goods, drugs and human trafficking, claimed a UN report on Tuesday, highlighting the difficulty governments face to clamp down on transnational organised crime.
Asian Sovereign Bonds: The New ‘Safe Havens’?
As U.S. and European markets continue to sputter amid the global economic uncertainty, emerging market bonds in Asia have been quietly gaining favour as alternative safe havens – with relatively strong security, yet attractive yields. Experts however are worried whether a massive surge of money may end in a crash; though, for the moment at least, Asian sovereign bonds are showing surprising resilience.
China-Japan Territorial Dispute Hurts $340bn Trade Ties
Trade relations between two of Asia’s largest economies could take a hard hit as tensions over a territorial dispute escalate. Some of Japan’s largest firms have suspended operations at their Chinese plants as concerns over safety grow and anti-Japan sentiments and protests turn violent.
As the trade and economic interests of China and Japan have become increasingly intertwined, analysts warn that an escalation of the region’s territorial dispute could deal “a blow to the Asian economy and the global one as a whole.”
