Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s Diplomatic Path within India
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking new ways to enhance India’s global diplomacy. Modi is pursuing two paths largely overlooked by analysts of India’s foreign policy: to connect with the Indian diaspora and to encourage links with subnational governments...
This Week in the Emerging Markets
Falling commodity prices and better US economic data are the biggest macro drivers for EM, overriding just about all idiosyncratic variables – perhaps with the exception of the weaker yen for Korea. We note that aside from the huge fall...
Some Things to Think About in the Coming Week
Developments in the week ahead will be understood within the context of last week's developments. The most important of these are the strength of the US jobs report and cuts in growth and inflation forecasts by the European Central Bank...
The Dollar, ECB, Yen, and Oil Remain Firmly Entrenched in the News
The US dollar changed little against most of the major currencies but is taking another step up against the yen. The failure of the Democrat Party of Japan to mount a serious challenge to Abe, despite the quite divided public...
An Emerging Markets Review
1) Some EM policymakers are becoming more worried about weak currencies 2) The PBOC failed to drain liquidity for the past three sessions, fueling speculation of a cut in reserve requirements 3) The Reserve Bank of India keep rates unchanged, but indicated...
India’s Bilateral Investment Treaties Leave Room for Abuse
In December 2013, despite an ongoing official review of its existing agreements, the Indian government signed a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with the United Arab Emirates. Information on the deal was recently made public by the Ministry of Finance after...
Expectations Met by ECB Inaction
The ECB has not announced any new initiative. It stands ready to do more next year, but there was no specific mention of sovereign bond purchases. There was no tweaking of the second TLTRO which will launched next week. ...
Key EU Members’ View of the European Economic Crisis
Europe's economic crisis is slowly but steadily eroding the political systems of many countries on the Continent. New actors are emerging and threatening the supremacy of the traditional players. Alliances and events that seemed impossible only a few years ago...
Philippine Economic Growth Hinges on Needed Reforms
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...
Strengthening China and Japan’s Relationship
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...
China’s State Owned Enterprises Face New Challenges
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....
A Preview of this Week’s Events Among the Emerging Markets
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...
Monday Market Moves and More
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...
Misconceptions about China’s Economic Growth Sources
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...
Revisionists Threaten to Isolate Japan
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...