Markets

The forthcoming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) could help drive economic reform in the Philippines. But policymakers will have to embrace what could be difficult reforms and realise that ignoring them would raise the threat of being bypassed (again) by investment...

The meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi Jinping at the 2014 APEC summit was a temporary relief for both amid rising bilateral tensions over the last two years. This talk was the result of both governments’ efforts...

The relationship between the state and economic enterprise is a central choice that governments have to make in all economies. The role of the state and state-backed or state-owned enterprise in Asia’s economic modernisation is a question of special interest....

With the broader dollar appreciation trend losing steam in last several weeks, the fall in oil prices has become the main external variable determining EM performance.  Russia, of course, is the weakest link amongst the major EM countries, but Malaysia...

The US dollar is mostly softer as North American participants prepare to return from what, for many, was a long weekend. The greenback had initially moved higher, hitting JPY119.15 while the euro slipped to $1.2420. The proximate cause was the continued...

Virtually every dimension of China’s economic success over the past three-and-a-half decades can be attributed largely to the rise of markets and private businesses. Private firms account for almost all the growth in employment, most of the expansion of output...

Abe’s persistent stance on the Yasukuni Shrine, the Dokdo/Takeshima territorial dispute and the ‘comfort women’ issue has elicited fierce opposition from the South Korean government. While no rapprochement on any of these conflicts has been achieved, the Japanese government should...

The recent state visit by Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to Cambodia represented part of the Thai military government’s uphill diplomatic battle to build and strengthen its legitimacy abroad. This visit occurred amid mounting diplomatic pressures from Europe and the...

1) Oil prices have taken another sharp leg down 2) The People’s Bank of China surprised the markets with rate cuts last Friday 3) Malaysia cut fuel subsidies just days after Indonesia’s new President Joko Widodo took similar measures 4) Nigeria devalued the...

OPEC's decision to roll-over existing quotas sent oil prices sharply lower, pushed European bonds and stocks higher, and generally gave the U.S. dollar a boost.  Today's theme is more consolidative in nature.  At the same time, the dollar's firmer tone...

China is facing a new economic crisis, and it is not about mounting local debt or even a rapidly slowing property market. The crisis in the making is about family business succession in the world’s second-largest economy. This issue may...

State-owned enterprises have played a relatively minor role in the era of investment-driven globalisation that began in the 1970s. As recently as 2007, when annual flows of foreign direct investment by multinational enterprises reached a record US$2 trillion, state-owned enterprises...

When Abe dissolved the lower house on 21 November 2014 and called a snap election for December, top leaders in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and New Komeito identified keeping 270 seats as the low-water mark, which would represent a...

A sea change is occurring in Sri Lanka’s strategic orientation. Recent developments suggest that Sri Lanka is becoming China’s new best friend and security partner in the eastern Indian Ocean. This would represent a major change in Sri Lanka’s foreign...

Japan's economy and its lost decades are no more news to us. When Japan was hit by its first real estate collapse, little did it know that its revival would take forever. Many criticized the reforms that were taken and...