Two years before an election was due, President Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka has called an early poll for 8 January, seeking an unprecedented third term in office made possible by his revision of the constitution.
Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has called a snap mid-term election on 8 January 2015, two years ahead of schedule, in a bid to win a third term in office. What was largely expected to be a one-horse race has quickly become a close run proposition, with the surprise entry of Maithripala Sirisena —the General Secretary of the president’s own Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), no less — as the common opposition candidate.
In very early Asian markets, participants responded to Draghi’s sovereign bond buying hints, and Merkel’s seeming willingness to let Greece leave EMU by sending the euro to a low of $1.1865, according to Bloomberg. The thin conditions exacerbated the move, but the single currency has not been able to resurface above the $1.1980 area since.
The investment climate is being shaped by four forces:
1. De-synchronized business cycle with the US ahead of the pack
2. The prospects of sovereign bond purchases by the ECB, amid political uncertainty sparked by Geece’s snap election
3. The continued drop in energy prices is a stimuluative writ large but poses challenges for oil producers and the leveraged eco-system that has been built on the premise of high oil prices forever.
India had a landmark year in 2014. A new political, cultural and economic reality is emerging.
China is working to make the international order suit its interests better and put China front and centre in global affairs. Xi Jinping’s new diplomatic focus on multilateral diplomacy includes giving new profile to existing arrangements where China can lead, such as the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). He is also pushing his own initiatives, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, while pursuing economic reform and military modernisation.
An embarrassing fact about ASEAN governments avoided in public policy discussions is that the capacity of most ASEAN states is quite limited — much more limited than they, and the international community, generally wish to admit. Until there is recognition of limited state capacity, it will be hard to understand the implications for public policy.
Japan’s declining population is a serious problem. Unless the nation can devise policy strategies either to arrest the decline or deal effectively with its impacts, in the long run Japan will find its path to sustained economic growth blocked.
Economic expectations were left uncertain as recent reports showed Philippine’s growth for the third quarter to be slower than normal. GDP fell to 5.3%, significantly lower than the 6.4% gain during the second quarter, and lower than the 7% growth seen during the same period last year. Currently, the gross domestic product is at its slowest pace since 2011, and there are numerous factors to blame.
World oil prices are falling precipitously. For an oil exporter like Malaysia, that is definitely bad news. Unless the country can diversify its economy, it may find it difficult to navigate its way through the economic challenges it faces on its way to higher income status.
