Markets

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure in Asia (PQI) aims to consolidate Japan’s regional clout among the emerging Asian economies. PQI, which is often viewed as a competing formulation vis-à-vis the Chinese mega infrastructure designs, is critical...

  The recent sustained attention given to the economic performance of Africa is a sharp departure from the usual negative and patronising representation of the continent in the global media. The old narrative represented a continent riddled by wars, famines,...

The state of India’s manufacturing sector is concerning. Especially when compared to the massive transformation registered in this sector by other Asian countries in similar stages of development. Contributing around 16 percent of India’s GDP, manufacturing remains far below its...

While the Aquino reforms have ignited great progress, the next Philippines president will be more independent in critical economic, political and military decisions that will also shape Southeast Asia’s future, says Dan Steinbock. After President Ferdinand Marcos (1965-86) and a...

One of India’s most promising economic features is its large working-age population. Yet if India doesn’t find jobs for its young people, this boon will quickly turn into a powder keg, as evinced by the recent agitations of unemployed Jats...

EM ended last week on a soft note.  Perhaps the main driver was rising US yields, as markets become wary of a more hawkish Fed this Wednesday.  Perhaps it was technical, as the EM rally became over-extended.  Whatever the reasoning,...

On 7 May residents of Sarawak, the larger of the two Malaysian states located on Borneo Island, will be going to the polls. Sarawak is the only one of Malaysia’s 13 states to hold its state and federal polls separately....

On 29 February, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the National Democratic Alliance government’s third Union Budget. The government, having assumed office a little less than two years ago, is no longer new to the job. It was expected to...

China’s central bank may be leaning less dovish, Turkey has a new central bank governor, Argentina issued external debt for the first time since it defaulted 15 years ago, Brazil's lower house voted to impeach President Rousseff by a 367-137...

Vietnam has announced a bold new higher education reform agenda. The government of Vietnam will offer up to 10,000 government scholarships for overseas doctoral study between 2014 and 2020 (or 1300–1500 per year) to tertiary and research institute staff. The...

On 31 March 2016, a tribunal set up by the Indian government upheld a ban on the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) (NSCN(K)) for five years. The case pertains to the 4 June 2015 attacks carried out by NSCN(K)...

The following observations are drawn from the weekly report of Japan's Ministry of Finance unless noted otherwise.  We use the weekly data instead of monthly to identify changes of trend earlier.  We use simple convention of the week by the...

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Chairman Mao and with it one of the lowest points in the political history of the People’s Republic of China. The nation that had stood up in 1949 was, at...

Despite international skepticism, China's first-quarter data suggests economic resilience amid global challenges, while structural transition prevails in the medium term.  According to new data, China's economy grew by 6.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2016. While it reflected...

The US presidential selection process is well underway, and yet there has been no coherent discussion of fiscal policy.  In part, this is because it does not appear particularly urgent.  The US deficit peaked in 2009 at 10.1% of GDP. ...