Asia

Residential Real Estate demand has been picking up, which is evident in the rising count of new launches and sales of housing units. The office market recorded a weighted average lease term of 62 months in the last 14 months until February – higher than previous peaks of 59 months in 2018 and 2022. The rising tenure of lease transactions is indicative of the rising demand for India’s commercial real estate. Enforcement of regulatory initiatives like RERA (Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016), rising per capita incomes, improving housing affordability bode well for the overall realty sector. Earlier, the structure of the real estate market in India was lopsided, with consumers having limited bargaining power, whereas large builders and developers had the upper hand. The...

The Centre’s latest figures on growth in the country’s gross domestic product don’t add up and are “mystifying”, former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said on Friday. The government said on February 29 that the Indian economy grew by 8.4% during the third quarter of 2023-’24, or between October 1 and December 31. This was the strongest growth registered by the country since the second quarter of 2022. The government’s National Statistical Office, in its second advance estimate, also pegged the country's growth at 7.6% for the current financial year. However, Subramanian, at the India Today Conclave 2024, said that the implied inflation in these numbers is 1% to 1.5%, while the actual inflation is between 3% and 5%. “The economy is growing at 7.5% even though private...

NEW DELHI -- India's brisk economy has created a tail wind for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reelection campaign, although some analysts caution that the reality might not be quite as rosy as the headline numbers suggest. The South Asian country's gross domestic product for the October to December quarter surprised most economists, growing by 8.4%. Most forecasters had predicted the economy would struggle to clear 7% for the quarter. Although India only reports figures for fiscal years, the reading resulted in a robust growth rate of about 7.7% for the calendar year. The GDP jump is part of a string of glowing reports on the Indian economy. "We expect India to be the fastest-growing economy among major G20 countries, with its real GDP growth to accelerate to around 8% in the fiscal...

Amid the economic crisis in Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari announced on Tuesday his decision to forgo his salary while in office, reported The Express Tribune. “In view of the prevailing economic challenges, President Zardari has decided that he will not draw his presidential salary. He took this decision to encourage prudent financial management in the country,” said a statement released by the President’s Secretariat. He has taken over as the head of the state for a historic second time, reported Dawn. Earlier, he served as President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, Zardari got 411 electoral votes. He defeated his opponent and chief of the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who could only get 181 ...

A more nuanced look at China’s economic indicators is necessary to understand current trends. In recent years, there has been a notable shift among certain Western politicians, media outlets and think tanks regarding their perspective on China’s developmental trajectory. The once-popular theory of an imminent Chinese collapse, famously asserted by Gordon G. Chang over two decades ago, has finally begun to lose traction. But there is still a lingering reluctance to acknowledge China’s sustained ascent, prompting the emergence of a new buzzword: “Peak China.” As the second-largest GDP globally for 15 consecutive years, China’s economic landscape has naturally witnessed expansion alongside moderated growth rates, a phenomenon well-recognized in economic theory. In the context of China’...

The Indian economy, which expanded at a four-month high in January, continued to strengthen in February, seeing accelerations in both manufacturing and services sectors during the month. While services sector output climbed to a seven-month high in February, manufacturing sector output reached a five-month high, firming India’s position as one of the fastest-growing major economies. The HSBC Flash India Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), compiled by S&P Global, climbed to 61.5 in February from a revised reading of 61.2 for January—well above the 50-point threshold that differentiates expansion from contraction. The seasonally adjusted index measures month-on-month change in the combined output of India’s manufacturing and service sectors. “Growth improved in both ...

In August 2017, a deadly ethnic clearance operation, backed by the Myanmar military against the minority Rohingya (Muslim) population in Rakhine state, began the displacement of thousands of Rohingyas. By the end of 2017, around 745,000 people had fled to Cox’s Bazar, a district in southeast Bangladesh. Bangladesh, though not a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention, and despite being a country with a high population density, sheltered and welcomed these forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals on an ad hoc basis. By April 2019, more than 900,000 Rohingyas were living in coastal Bangladesh, and today about 90% of the Rohingya population lives in Bangladesh. With limited financial resources, Bangladesh, in collaboration with donor and global aid bodies, has worked hard to provide shelt...