Markets

2014 witnessed slow growth in the world economy. It tested economies of emerging markets and advanced economies. Economies like Eurozone, Japan and Russia saw some major financial shocks. On the other hand, when compared to 2013, advanced countries like USA...

India’s economy, which has languished in middling growth for the past few years, is on the mend under new Prime Minister Narendra Modi.After experiencing real GDP growth of less than 5 per cent in 2013-14, the Indian economy is expected...

Since its inception in 1985, there have been questions about the effectiveness of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to promote economic integration in South Asia. One of the biggest impediments to SAARC’s progress has been the continued...

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...