Japan’s political scene is shifting towards the right, as the country prepares for general elections which must be held by August 2013 but are likely to come a lot sooner. As Business Monitor Online chronicled last week, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who is arguably Japan’s leading nationalist politician, quit his post to establish a new… [Read more]
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff recently vetoed some important provisions in Brazil’s new forestry code. The key issue is re-forestation. Farmers in the Amazon region are currently required to maintain a certain level of forest cover (around 50% of total farmland). The controversy stems from whether this should include farmland that would be used for crops,… [Read more]
Although it is quite obvious that European fiscal issues are exacerbating tensions between wealthy member states and poorer ones, it is also becoming increasingly apparent that the crisis is leading to greater separatist sentiment in regions within EU states. Many EU sovereign states have regions with distinct cultural, linguistic, or economic identities that have shown… [Read more]
The cautious view that we adopted towards the Dow Jones a couple of weeks ago on our online service has played out. The Dow’s break below trendline support around the 13,320 mark triggered a swift move lower. Although a short-term unwind of the recent summer rally is to be expected, the Dow is now homing… [Read more]
Tensions are rising in the Mexican legislature’s debate over labour market reform, and we believe the outcome will be a key indicator of whether President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto (who takes office in December 2012) will be able to implement his promised reform agenda. As we had previously highlighted, one of Peña Nieto’s key challenges in… [Read more]
BMI’s below-consensus view on commodity prices has played out well so far in 2012, with the global mining industry facing one of the most challenging times in the last decade. Our Head of Mining, Edward Coughlan, discusses how this and other trends are affecting the mining sector, as well as which countries and companies will be affected by these developments.
Indian IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)’s decision to expand its presence in China dovetails nicely with our long-term view that India will benefit from a reorientation of China’s economy away from infrastructure investment and towards consumer services. At present, commercial and financial ties between emerging Asia’s two largest economies are trivial, and given the… [Read more]
