Today, in Business Monitor Online: Governments across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are facing a massive demographic challenge as large, rapidly growing young populations enter the workforce over the coming years. Failure to invest in labour-intensive infrastructure projects or make necessary reforms to employment law in an effort to stimulate job creation could… [Read more]
China is foremost on my mind. Regular readers of our online service will know that my colleagues and I at Business Monitor International (BMI) are well below consensus in predicting only 7.5% real GDP growth in 2011. Below, I list some thoughts on this subject: Growth slowdown: The notion of a ‘hard landing’ for China’s… [Read more]
On this week’s podcast, we return our attention to emerging markets, highlighting opportunities beyond the BRICs in EMEA- Europe, Middle East and Africa. Business Monitor’s Head of Country Risk and Financial Markets Justin Patrie, discusses the outlook for Egypt, Ghana and Turkey with Mark Schaltuper, Head of Europe Analysis, Liz Martins, Head of Middle East… [Read more]
There’s been quite a lot of commentary in the media of late about Turkey emerging as a global power. This seems to have been prompted by the increasingly assertive positions on a variety of issues (eg standing up to Israel over the Gaza blockade, and vetoing new UN sanctions on Iran) adopted by Prime Minister… [Read more]
The US Census Bureau on Tuesday released its latest population projections for 227 countries and territories, but what is grabbing the most attention are their figures for China and India (click here for press release). In particular, the Bureau sees China’s population shrinking from 2026, a year after which they expect India to become the… [Read more]
‘Change’ is a powerful message. Barack Obama made this his main slogan in his 2008 campaign. Rocky Balboa proclaimed this to the Soviet Politburo at the end of Rocky IV. UK girl band Sugababes called their fifth album Change. Now, even Japan has opted for change, after 54 years of rule by the Liberal Democratic… [Read more]
The idea that ‘demography is destiny’ is used a lot by economists to justify upbeat economic growth forecasts for a number of emerging nations, and pessimistic outlooks for several developed states. My colleagues and I at Business Monitor International (BMI) certainly keep demographic projections in mind when looking at long-term forecasts. Usefully, the UN World… [Read more]
