Thailand now stands on a tightrope among the major powers. Recently, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev made a high-profile visit to Bangkok, hosted by the coup-appointed government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. Medvedev’s visit suggests that Thailand is now strategically courting authoritarian major powers, namely Russia and China, in defiance of Western criticism of Bangkok’s coup and military regime.
Economic modelling and its associated forecasts are always open to criticism, particularly when the results align with the predisposition of the modellers or their paymasters. Such criticism has been a feature of economic modelling on energy and climate change for several years.
When it comes to climate change and Australia’s economic future, different crystal balls can produce vastly different results.
The state of the UK economy featured heavily in the election campaign, but the deficit overwhelmed the discussion. Over the next five years, however, the new government will have to confront a range of economic challenges. Predicting how these will develop is notoriously difficult (although opinion pollsters may now have a worse reputation than economists for forecasting), but several key areas can be identified – and restoring growth to the UK economy is of paramount importance.
The governments and people of Southeast Asia must develop a strong sense of ownership and control over infrastructure projects as China increasingly directs its investments towards the region’s infrastructure.
The financial and political crises of 1998 brought about significant changes in Indonesia’s corporate landscape. The proportion of Indonesian firms with political connections remains relatively high, but it is declining, as modes of political engagement increasingly vary.
A recent survey done by The Economist Group on 217 companies from 45 different countries revealed that about 65% of them; intend to expand to Africa in the next one decade. Growth potential in most African economies coupled with the peace dividend from democratization of most governments drive the renewed focus on Africa. However, as many companies seek to set shop here, they are missing out on the fundamentals that will assure them of sustained growth within the continent.
1) China stimulus continues, 2) Stymied India reform efforts, 3) Brazil’s fiscal outlook has worsened after the lower house passed an amendment to boost pension payments, 4) Polish political risk is rising, 5) The Russian central bank bought USD for the first time since last June , 6) Ukraine default risk appears to be rising.
China’s targeted growth of 7.0 percent for the year may not occur as the economy suffers from weaker consumer spending, sluggish export growth, property decline and a lack of infrastructure projects. The People’s Bank of China cut another interest rate this week, and analysts expect Chinese officials to commence more monetary easing measures and increase spending.
The US dollar is enjoying firmer tone as the week winds down. It is up against all the major currencies but the Norwegian krone today. This trims the loss for the week. In fact, the roughly 0.7% decline of the New Zealand dollar today, making it the weakest of the majors, is enough to turn it lower on the week. Fonterra lowered its 12-month projections of dairy supply, especially whole milk powder.
China’s industrial landscape is in a process of rapid transformation. As low-end industries are squeezed by rising costs for land, labour and other resources, the Chinese government has reinforced its efforts to improve industrial practices and make production models more sophisticated. Sadly, however, these changes have not improved the lot of the more than 150m migrant workers who fill the factories.
