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]
China’s exports came in at US$94.5bn in February, up 45.6% y-o-y and higher than consensus estimates. The data shows a continued outperformance of exports to emerging markets relative to developed markets, with exports to emerging markets such as India (up 54%), and Brazil (up 92%) showing the most impressive gains. On the imports side of… [Read more]
US President Barack Obama, en route to ‘Asia’ (I use the speech marks, because Asia is so diverse and it is inaccurate to consider it a single entity), has no shortage of issues to deal with when he gets there. There seems to be a general feeling that US influence in Asia is on the… [Read more]