Markets

China’s One Belt, One Road initiative is currently the most important program for deep economic integration. The program envisages the revitalisation of old trading routes with a continental Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st century Maritime Silk Road. Despite its...

The expansion of trade among sub-Saharan African nations holds the key to faster growth and development to the benefit of all its citizens. To unlock this potential, countries will have to focus more on trade facilitation, including the simplification and...

Between the “no” in the Greek referendum and a sharp drop in oil and commodity prices, EM is starting the week on a bad note.  Therefore, we think this is a week to be defensive.  There has been limited contagion...

India’s domestic and international economic choices have not always been the wisest. At independence, India was determined to transcend the distorted pattern of economic integration with the world that two centuries of exploitative colonialism had engendered. However, in the process,...

China’s old model of growth produced the strongest, most resource-intensive economic growth the world has ever seen. However, the period in which China’s growth dominated world demand for energy and metals and lifted global commodities prices to unprecedented levels has...

One of the challenges facing African countries is that the global environment is rather unfriendly. This hampers their efforts to tap into global markets. Additionally, African economies are hindered by them still depending heavily on external assistance. Domestic revenue mobilisation...

There has been a chronic failure among economists to explain growth in Africa. The methods and analytical angles they have used to explain relative failure in Africa came in the 1990s, but these were unsuitable for explaining growth in the...

The higher they rise, the harder they fall. No politician in post-Suharto Indonesia has risen higher and faster than Joko Widodo (Jokowi), whose win in the 2014 presidential elections was considered a breath of fresh air for a vibrant but...

Three years ago this month, ECB President Draghi issued his now-famous pledge to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro.  Indeed, it has done its part.  The ECB has a negative deposit rate, something that even with a protracted...

The markets remain off-kilter.  The dollar has recouped a little of the ground lost yesterday.   Reports in a Greek paper that Tsipras may be reconsidering Juncker's proposal may prevent a deeper pullback in the euro, which found a bid near...

Nearly 15 years after embarking on its large-scale decentralisation initiative, Indonesia has decided to extend its efforts to the village level. Decentralising to the nearly 74,000 villages is intended to improve service delivery performance at the lowest administrative tier and...

EM assets start the weak on a soft note, driven by risk off sentiment stemming from Greek developments.  The weekend PBOC easing measures had little impact, with China stocks adding to their recent losses.  With another strong US jobs report...

1) The Brazilian congress passed a new measure that will hurt the fiscal outlook, 2) Brazil central bank kept the inflation target for 2017 the same at 4.5%, but narrowed the tolerance band to +/ 1.5 percentage points, 3) Israel...

Forecasts of China’s future run the gamut. I do not endorse either extreme. There is no significant chance that in the foreseeable future the Communist government will follow the fate of the Soviet Union. Nor do I share the view...

Africa’s only regional bank, the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), has come a long way since its near collapse in 1995. It now reflects its mandate to fight poverty by aiding public and private investment projects that promote socioeconomic improvement....