Markets

Gaining momentum since 2006, the impact investing concept is now 9 years old but it is yet to be well established in many emerging markets including East Africa. As opposed to the maturity expected of an industry after such a...

With the foreign population in Japan expected to grow in the future, policymakers have an interest in promoting a more positive view of immigration. Current public opinion toward immigration in Japan, like in much of the rest of the world,...

Political connections are invaluable to industries or individual enterprises in China. But while they may bring regulatory benefits to private-owned enterprises during the state-controlled process of going public, they may also lead to China’s stock markets performing poorly. China’s stock...

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has been much in news ever since China showed interest in forming a bank that focused on infrastructure projects in the Asian region. Established in 2014, the Asian lending institution has a target of $100...

Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of one of Asia’s smallest but most developed economies, has died. Lee led Singapore after its separation from Malaysia to emerge as one of the world’s most powerful financial centres. The tiny nation, whose...

The usual assessment of Xi Jinping’s performance as China’s leader goes like this: since taking the reins at the end of 2012, he has over-delivered on anti-corruption and underwhelmed on economic reform. The usual assessment of Xi Jinping’s performance as...

The market continues to search for a new range post-FOMC with a mixed dollar.  The relentless rise of the dollar has been broken with the help of a softer US rate environment.  The seemingly relentless push of the euro toward...

The United States has dominated global economics and finance in the post-war era. But the rise of new regional institutions and agreements in Asia will pose a growing and lasting competitive challenge to US leadership in the Pacific. To adapt...

Some are calling for a new institution to manage Asia’s maritime disputes. ‘The physical contours of East Asia’, leading geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan recently wrote, ‘argue for a naval century’. Given the significance of the maritime realm in the region...

The Philippines ranked ninth out of 142 countries in terms of gender equality, according to the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2014. As one of the top 10 countries, the Philippines keeps company with high-income Nordic...

EM FX ended last week on a firm note. We believe that the broad-based dollar rally remains intact, but we could see a period of consolidation until the interest rate backdrop becomes more positive for the dollar. The week after...

The US dollar opened broadly lower in Asia but trended higher through the first half of the European morning.  The euro peaked just above $1.0880 and fell a little more than a cent (~$1.0770) before finding a reasonable bid.  Sterling...

The Chinese economy grew by 7.4% in 2014 and expects to grow by 7.0% this year. These are impressive growth rates for any country but lower than past years’ achievements. For three solid decades, since the beginning of market reforms...

Chancellor George Osborne has unveiled his fifth budget. Fifty days before the general election, it was a more optimistic set of announcements than the UK public has become used to, and Osborne made strong claims about the economic recovery, claiming...

Challenging the dangerous imbalances in the UK economy, where the banking sector contributes 450% of nominal GDP, is imperative. But weeks ahead of a general election, no one wants to redefine the rules of the game. Challenging the dangerous imbalances...