The notion that economies generating current account surpluses are necessarily better positioned than those running deficits is commonplace. This flawed thinking has become more noticeable of late in relation to China and Germany, which are revered for their strong growth and debt metrics. However, in a special feature article in Business Monitor Online today, we… [Read more]

Although many of the more promising consumer industries in Latin America are reasonably easy to identify (e.g. food & drink and retail stocks), there are several other consumer-related sectors that I think have massive growth potential over the medium term. The first is airlines. Business and leisure travel is set to boom over the coming years,… [Read more]

Although it has become fashionable over the past couple of years (basically since the US went into recession in 2007) to talk about the United States’ economic decline, I believe the case is overstated, as I mentioned on this space in November 2008. In that article, I mainly discussed the geopolitical dimension. Today, I will… [Read more]

Riskwatchdog recently attended a Bloomberg Africa focus day where several speakers discussed the potential offered by the African consumer in a challenge to the often-held view that the continent is a pure resource play. My colleagues in the Africa team at BMI are equally excited by the prospects for private consumption growth over the coming… [Read more]

On June 25, my colleagues at Business Monitor International (BMI) hosted another Country Risk roundtable, dedicating 90 minutes to discussing the outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and whether the region will be able to decouple from the global economy. For those interested, the BMI Africa team kindly provided the presentation slides for the event. As… [Read more]

Among other things, I’m just wrapping up a three-day working trip to Istanbul, where I participated in an investor’s conference focusing on the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region as well as met BMI clients to discuss views from the ground level. I figured I would take the opportunity while I’m waiting for my flight… [Read more]