Regular readers of this website will recall that we coined the acronym BLANKs in 2008 to refer to a group of extreme frontier market economies in Asia which have considerable development potential, but are being constrained by highly unusual or adverse political or geopolitical conditions. These are Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Afghanistan, and North Korea. All… [Read more]

Business Monitor International’s (BMI) Head of Latin America Country Risk & Financial Markets, Richard Hamilton, and Head of Americas Research, Cedric Chehab, discuss BMI’s core global themes and the impact and opportunities these will create within the Latin American and Caribbean market. Sign up for a free trial In this recorded webinar the team examines… [Read more]

In Business Monitor Online today, we discuss two important weekend events. It was an unlucky Friday the 13th for France, which lost its AAA credit rating from Standard and Poor’s. Among other things, the downgrade is likely to be prompt a reassessment by investors and the electorate of the Franco-German relationship in ongoing eurozone rescue… [Read more]

Over the coming week, my colleagues and I will be publishing our global and regional economic outlooks for 2012 on Business Monitor Online. The good news is that we have just published our Africa Outlook today. In this article, we identify and discuss five themes for the next 12 months: Weak external demand, due to… [Read more]

Myanmar (or Burma, as many still call it) has long been an economic laggard in Asia. Over the past few decades, virtually every other Asian state has boomed or emerged on investors’ radars in some way – but not Myanmar. The reason is, of course, Myanmar’s pariah status, economic isolationism, and chronic mismanagement. However, recent… [Read more]

In line with our long-held expectations of an enduring economic slowdown in India, the recently-released GDP figure showed a sharp downturn in activity – marking the sixth consecutive quarter where headline expansion has decelerated. Real GDP growth came in at 6.9% y-o-y in the second quarter of the current fiscal year (FY2011/12, April-March), down significantly… [Read more]

China’s growing role in Africa has become something of a cliché by now, yet my colleagues and I decided to re-examine this megatrend in Business Monitor Online and in our weekly Emerging Markets Monitor magazine. Overall, China’s rise presents both opportunities and risks for Africa. Although trade statistics suggest the relationship is dominated by China’s… [Read more]