World

19Jan mmBy Walter ParezNo Comments
World

How India’s Economy Will Be Driven by Real Estate

As India marches forward on its path to becoming a global powerhouse, one sector stands tall as the vital engine of growth and employment: the real estate industry. Second only to the agriculture sector, the dynamic sector holds the mantle as the second-highest employment generator in the country while contributing about 11% to Gross Value Added (GVA) growth since 2011-12 . Further, beyond the bricks and mortar, the real estate sector is expected to touch a US$ 1 trillion market size by 2030. This will account for 18-20% of India's GDP — acting as a catalyst that propels the nation's economy to new heights. During this year's, National Investiture Ceremony of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India , the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, ackno...
Read More
Which party’s economy performed better, the UPA or the NDA? Growth rates don’t provide a whole picture.
19Jan mmBy Joe RodriguezNo Comments
World

Which party’s economy performed better, the UPA or the NDA? Growth rates don’t provide a whole picture.

Election season is approaching and understandably there is a need to assess performance—economic and political. For political performance, the outcome of the 2024 election is not known. But we can compare the economic performance of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government with that of the previous Congress dispensation during the high growth period from 2004 to 2013. Such a comparison is useful to understand, evaluate, and compare economic policies and their outcomes on economic growth. Historically, economies like India and China operated like isolated islands. But starting with the 1991 economic reforms, successive Indian governments have followed a consistent reform policy (with some important failures). A key outcome of the reforms process, both in India and China, has the increased i...
Read More
Pakistan takes action to defuse the issue with Iran following fatal airstrikes.
19Jan mmBy Brian ThompsonNo Comments
World

Pakistan takes action to defuse the issue with Iran following fatal airstrikes.

Pakistan's political and military leaders on Friday moved to de-escalate tensions with Iran after this week's deadly airstrikes by Tehran and Islamabad that killed at least 11 people and marked a significant escalation in fraught relations between the neighbors. The decision was apparently reached at a meeting of Pakistan's National Security Committee, chaired by caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar on his return home after cutting short his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Pakistan's powerful army chief Gen. Asim Munir attended the meeting. A statement after the meeting said the leadership discussed the situation following the Iranian airstrikes and praised the “professional, calibrated and proportionate response" by Pakistan's military. The committ...
Read More
The Gavekal perspective: China investment and the Taiwan survey
18Jan mmBy Brian ThompsonNo Comments
China, World

The Gavekal perspective: China investment and the Taiwan survey

For once, the opinion polls were on the money. In Taiwan’s election, the Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te won the presidency with just over 40% of the vote, but the DPP lost its parliamentary majority. Of course, the reason the world was watching had little to do with Taiwan per se and everything to do with China. Taiwan is a key reason – although certainly not the only reason – why the majority of international investors today perceive China to be ‘uninvestible’. This perception is a marked turnaround from a year ago, when most investors – myself included – thought China’s post-Covid reopening would lead to a bounce similar to those seen in the US, the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. Except the bounce might be even more potent, since China had been l...
Read More
Experts and thinkers warn caution while hoping for a de-escalation in the Pakistan-Iran conflict.
18Jan mmBy Mike TrudellNo Comments
World

Experts and thinkers warn caution while hoping for a de-escalation in the Pakistan-Iran conflict.

Former diplomats, intellectuals and international relations experts on Thursday said that Pakistan and Iran should put behind the bitter phase and move forward as escalation is not good for them and the region, hours after nine persons were killed in Islamabad's counter-strike in the neighbouring country. This was the crux of the interviews and comments of experts while talking to the PTI or expressing their views on various media outlets in the wake of Pakistan's "precision military strikes" against what it called "terrorist hideouts" in Iran's Siestan-Balochistan province in the wee hours on Thursday.The attack was seen as retaliation to Iranian missile and drone attacks on Tuesday which targeted two bases of the Sunni Baloch militant group 'Jaish al-Adl' in Pakistan's unruly Balochi...
Read More
Many in China believe that the country’s economy is in a recession.
18Jan mmBy Joe RodriguezNo Comments
China, World

Many in China believe that the country’s economy is in a recession.

The night before China's civil service exam, Melody Zhang anxiously paced up and down the corridor of her dormitory, rehearsing her answers. Only when she got back to her room did she realise she had been crying the whole time.Zhang was hoping to start a career in state propaganda after more than 100 unsuccessful job applications in the media industry. With a record 2.6 million people going for 39,600 government jobs amid a youth unemployment crisis, she didn't get through."We were born in the wrong era," said the 24-year-old graduate from China's top Renmin University."No one cares about their dreams and ambitions anymore in an economic downturn. The endless job-hunting is a torture."A crisis of confidence in the economy is deterring consumers from spending and businesses from hiring and...
Read More
Amid economic concerns, Bangladesh Bank scaled down its growth objective to 6.5%.
17Jan mmBy Walter ParezNo Comments
World

Amid economic concerns, Bangladesh Bank scaled down its growth objective to 6.5%.

The Bangladesh Bank has revised down Bangladesh’s economic growth target to 6.5 percent from 7.5 percent for the fiscal year 2023-24. While unveiling Bangladesh Bank’s monetary policy statement (MPS), its Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder on Wednesday said in Dhaka that Bangladesh’s economic outlook remains positive amid the economic challenges. The Bangladesh Bank has revised down Bangladesh’s economic growth target to 6.5 percent from 7.5 percent for the fiscal year 2023-24. While unveiling Bangladesh Bank’s monetary policy statement (MPS), its Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder on Wednesday said in Dhaka that Bangladesh’s economic outlook remains positive amid the economic challenges. However, the Bangladesh Bank’s growth target revision came after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revi...
Read More
A diplomatic crisis is sparked by Iran’s attack on Pakistan.
17Jan mmBy Mike TrudellNo Comments
World

A diplomatic crisis is sparked by Iran’s attack on Pakistan.

Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday, a day after Iran launched airstrikes on Pakistan that it claimed targeted bases of a terror group. Islamabad angrily denounced the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said it killed two children. Tuesday’s strike on Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province imperiled diplomatic relations between the two neighbors, but both sides appeared wary of provoking the other. Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks. The attack also threatened to further ignite violence in a Middle East unsettled by Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. Iran launched strikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over a suicide bombing that killed more than 90 people earlier this month....
Read More
China’s demographic dilemma and its effects on the world population
17Jan mmBy Brian ThompsonNo Comments
China, World

China’s demographic dilemma and its effects on the world population

GILLIAN TETT in Fool’s Gold, her fabulous book on the Global Financial Crisis, wrote that “silo thinking” was behind the collective failure to see the scale of the looming disaster. The regulators worked in silos and were thus unable to see the big picture, as they were also hoodwinked the Masters of the Universe. The same silo behaviour applied to the buyers and sellers of credit derivatives, who spectacularly failed to see the wood for the trees. The river flowing through the wood was, of course, polluted by highly toxic debt. When the river burst its banks, the trees were almost completely submerged. Several major petrochemical companies were close to bankruptcy in late 2008 and early 2009 because of the sudden collapse of petrochemical pricing happened, which left them with very...
Read More
China’s private companies, pushed to prosper abroad, cautioned that the “days of runaway growth have gone” amid the debt crisis.
16Jan mmBy Walter ParezNo Comments
China, World

China’s private companies, pushed to prosper abroad, cautioned that the “days of runaway growth have gone” amid the debt crisis.

Fosun Group founder Guo Guangchang says the ‘days of runaway growth have gone’, with China’s private firms suffering from high debt and heavy asset loadsJuneyao Group chairman Wang Junjin also says entrepreneurs should ‘refuse lying flat’, and instead follow China’s going global strategy Some of China’s most prominent tycoons have been committed to reining in debt, and are also eying the overseas market for increased growth this year, despite Beijing’s attempt to play up domestic economic prospects and calls for more private investment. “The economic recovery last year was not as fast as we expected. Private firms are still facing huge pressure,” said Guo Guangchang, founder of Fosun Group, one of China’s largest private conglomerates. The 56-year-old is a respected voice in Chin...
Read More