Markets

It is not hard to list the domestic and international challenges for South Korea for 2015. There are many.At the end of 2014, South Korea faces economic slowdown, an ageing population, worsening socio-economic inequality, rising youth unemployment, mounting household debt...

Oil prices have raised concerns across the globe.  But the story of oil glut is not new. In 1980s, world price of oil rose at US$35 per barrel but fell to below US$10 per barrel by 1986. At that time...

The most important development today was the preliminary indications by the European Court of Justice that the ECB's Outright Monetary Transaction initiative was "in principle" consistent with the ECB mandate.  Even though the opinion by the Advocate General Villalon is...

Greece is again making headlines, and markets are concerned the euro crisis is back. Actually, the crisis never left. It is just that for a little while both the authorities and the markets chose to cherish the delusion that policies...

The household registration (‘hukou’) system in China, originally adopted in 1958, was finally put on the national reform agenda in July 2014. But how significant are the reforms? The household registration (‘hukou’) system in China, originally adopted in 1958, was...

A quiet but increasingly deadly struggle is taking place in Thailand’s deep south.But why has the security crisis in the three southernmost insurgency-affected provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat proved so intractable and drawn out? And why have the Thai...

The mutuality of Asia’s economic interests centring on deepening economic integration is a potential foundation for building an Asian economic community that encompasses the ASEAN 10 plus their six neighbours, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia and New Zealand. The...

The mutuality of Asia’s economic interests centring on deepening economic integration is a potential foundation for building an Asian economic community that encompasses the ASEAN 10 plus their six neighbours, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia and New Zealand. The...

The US State Department’s analysis of China’s nine-dash line, which it released in advance of China’s Position Paper on the South China Sea arbitration case with the Philippines, is in part conceptually and legally flawed. The US State Department’s analysis...

EM is starting the week facing several familiar cross-currents.  The dollar is strengthening again, oil prices are still falling, but equities are moving higher.  This constellation seems to suggest a continuation of our call further weakness in EM, but for...

In thin Asian trading, with the Japanese markets closed for holiday, the US dollar's pre-weekend losses extended.  However, European participants took advantage of that pullback to buy more dollars.  A similar reversal of sentiment was evident in the equity markets....

The greatest risk to the divergence theme is not that the BOJ and ECB would abandon their unorthodox monetary policy.  It was that the consensus would swing against ideas that the Federal Reserve would raise rates near mid-year. The greatest...

On the usual measures of economic prosperity, Singapore went from strength to macroeconomic strength in 2014. Real economic growth was between 2.5 and 3.5 percent for the year. The IMF forecast the world economy in October to have grown at...

The impact investing space is growing in Africa and could be the trigger this developing continent needs for faster sustainable development. As the MDGs are being replaced by the SDGs in 2015, new development concepts and policies are being floated...

After a year of solid achievement on the economic front, Malaysia’s leaders will face difficult circumstances as they implement reform in 2015.One of the more impressive achievements of the Malaysian government in 2014 was the resolve it demonstrated in trying...