Category: Markets

Racing Against Time: Will Asia Grow Old Before Getting Rich?


A large proportion of Asian countries are currently at the top of the working-age population hump. For them, the window of opportunity to prepare for an older population will close within the next decade. But how can Asian countries take advantage of this window of opportunity? They can start by reforming retirement income provision systems, especially given the retreat of traditional family support.

In the next 30 years an additional one billion people will call Asia home.

WTO Cuts Global Trade Outlook for 2013


The World Trade Organisation on Wednesday cut its trade forecast for 2013, citing risks from the eurozone crisis and rising protectionism.

Global trade is now expected to grow by 3.3 percent, the WTO said, down from its earlier forecast of 4.5 percent.

The world body also said trade flows grew just 2 percent in 2012, the smallest annual rise since records began in 1981 and the second weakest figure on record after 2009, when trade shrank.

The Search for Growth in a Multi-Speed World: Mohamed El-Erian


The last few years have highlighted the declining potency of long-standing growth models. Today, some of the biggest world economies struggle to create ample, well-paid and secure jobs amid a secular re-alignment of the global economy. This is a challenge that will not be met easily or quickly. And, when it is met, the process will most likely be partial and uneven, accentuating differences and posing tricky coordination issues at the national, regional, and global levels.

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Financial Crisis Has Created ‘Three-Speed’ World, Says Lagarde


The global financial crisis has created a ‘three-speed’ world economy with the eurozone at the bottom, and a ‘too-big-to-fail’ banking system that is now “more dangerous than ever”, said Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

EU Officials Seek More Clout to Deal with Trade Disputes


European Union trade regulators are seeking new powers to compel companies to cooperate in anti-dumping investigations, a move which analysts say is aimed at strengthening the bloc’s ongoing disputes with China.

South Korea Should Consider Developing Nuclear Weapons, Says Top Lawmaker


A prominent South Korean official on Tuesday said his country should consider matching the North’s nuclear work step-by-step, or bring back a former U.S. arsenal, as a way to deter its belligerent neighbour.

Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Conference, Chung Mong Joon, a billionaire businessman and former presidential candidate, said South Korea has the right to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the latest crisis on the Korean peninsula showed that diplomacy has failed with Pyongyang.

Asian Emerging Markets Vulnerable to Shock: ADB


Asia’s developing economies will pick up speed in 2013 but its recovery will remain fragile said the Asian Development Bank on Tuesday, citing vulnerability to external shocks and increasing geopolitical disputes as threats to growth.

The economies of developing Asia appear to have settled into a new growth path that will allow the region to expand by between 6 percent and 7 percent a year — a pace that is significantly slower than that seen before the global financial crisis, but represents a stable pattern that could last over the next decade.

US Treasury Secretary Urges EU to Focus on Growth, Not Austerity


The United States Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Monday urged European officials to adopt more growth-friendly policies to counter the region’s debt crisis, as well as to enact stronger and more unified defenses against financial panics.

Lew, on his first official trip since being installed as Treasury Secretary, also reminded his European counterparts of the “immense stake” the United States has in the eurozone’s recovery and reform efforts.

China Promises Level Playing Field for Foreign Businesses


Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised to protect the interests of foreign companies in China amid rising concern among global firms about discriminatory policies and complicated bureaucratic processes that hurt their businesses in the country.

In a rare audience with the head of the ruling Communist Party, global business leaders at the Bo’ao Forum on Monday appealed to Xi to reduce barriers and restrictions on investment that favour Chinese state firms as well as to end outright discrimination against foreign firms.

IMF Backs Japan’s $1.4tn Monetary Policy Boost


International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde on Sunday said the radical $1.4 trillion stimulus from the Bank of Japan would not only boost investor confidence in the world’s third largest economy, but would also support the world economy that she said has improved from a year ago.

The Bank of Japan stunned investors on Thursday when it announced plans to dramatically expand the country’s monetary supply, as it tries to stimulate growth and end two decades of stagnation.