Markets

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is unlikely to come into being by its December 2015 deadline due to its overambitious design and apathetic implementation. But there are still plenty of things that ASEAN can do to prepare for when the...

It ain’t so much the things we know that get us into trouble.  It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.  --- Attributed to several American writers It ain’t so much the things we know that get us into...

As the year winds down, a Gordian knot tying Russia, oil prices and China together is receiving a great deal of attention.  Let us see if we can unravel some of the confusing twists and turns.  We turn first to...

EM currencies stabilized after the FOMC meeting last week.  Yet the Fed clearly signaled that it remains on track to start hiking rates around mid-2015.  While Yellen’s guidance was taken as dovish (tightening won’t be at a predictable, “measured” pace),...

The Great East Japan Earthquake, the tsunami and the subsequent nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima on 11 March 2011 changed Japan’s energy future drastically. The revised Strategic Energy Plan, which the Japanese Cabinet approved in April 2014, outlines a...

We begin the 2014 ‘year in review’ series, looking at developments in Asia over the year past and the prospects for the year ahead, with a look at how Indonesia is travelling and the prospects for its economy. We begin...

A greater sense of optimism prevails in Indonesia about the economy in 2015 than a year ago, even though the reality is now more challenging. Growth is slowing, business costs are on the rise, and key economic vulnerabilities persist. In...

Shaping the holiday week, we identify five general points that we expect to underpin the US dollar and equities.  1. Last week's events (FOMC and SNB) reinvigorated the divergence thesis that was questioned during what appears to have been a...

By the end of 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) expects to establish a single market and production base in the region. With an ASEAN overall workforce of more than 300 million people, the AEC will have strong implications in...

‘Benghai’ was changing. Returning to my old office, my home for ten years of fieldwork in rural China, it was clear something was amiss. Gone was the grizzled caretaker, listlessly following his mop around the ground floor of the four-storey...

Over the last week, Colombia (+9.5%), Mexico (+1.9%), and Chile (+0.1%) have outperformed in the EM equity space as measured by MSCI, while Hungary (-9.6%), Turkey (-7.3%), and Russia (-5.8%) have underperformed.  To put this in better context, MSCI EM...

Things just haven’t clicked the way they should have in the Australian–ASEAN relationship. We seem far removed from the time when as Australia’s Foreign Minister I had no counterparts anywhere in the world with whom I felt more close and...

Surprise raids by Chinese government officials on the offices of major multinationals in China to catch out monopolistic business activity have created perceptions of bias against foreign firms in the enforcement of the anti-monopoly law. Surprise raids by Chinese government...

The US dollar extended recent losses against the euro and yen.  Oil prices continue to swoon.  The price of Brent oil has fallen below $60 and WTI approached $54.  While most emerging market currencies are higher today, a notable exception...

Those in the business of long-run GDP projections expect Asia, and particularly China, to keep growing above world trend rates for some years. The most optimistic — such as former Chief Economist at the World Bank, Justin Lin — have...