Most people, when asked to name potential flashpoints in Asia, would probably think of the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, or Kashmir. Often overlooked are very real tensions in the South China Sea, especially between China and Vietnam. Beijing claims the sea as its own, but no-one else in the region accepts this. Over the weekend, hundreds… [Read more]

The news that Italian scooter manufacturer Piaggio is looking to produce a mini car for ‘congested cities’ in Asia and Europe signals the beginning of a response by the two-wheeled segment to the wave of small cars appearing in emerging markets (EMs), largely with the aim of winning over those looking to upsize to four… [Read more]

Tensions have been rising in the South China Sea of late, and these are threatening to put strains on China’s relations with South East Asia and the US. Essentially, China has reiterated its long-standing claims over the whole of the South China Sea, including the Spratly and Paracel islands. Unsurprisingly, this sovereignty assertion is disputed… [Read more]

The devaluation of the Vietnamese dong by 5% on November 25 comes as little surprise for anyone having observed Hanoi’s woes in trying to combine a fixed exchange-rate regime with strongly pro-growth fiscal and monetary policy in recent years. Previous devaluations (in December 2008 and March 2009 most recently) have done little more than to… [Read more]

Further to my musings on whether ‘decoupling’ is fact or fiction, I’d like to briefly point out two of the curiosities of the current global equity rally. The first curiosity is how out of touch the rally seems to be with the fundamentals. My overall view is that this rally is simply a correction in… [Read more]

I recently visited Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), where my colleagues and I met many local business leaders (mainly Vietnamese, but also foreign expatriates). Although Vietnam is undoubtedly suffering from the global recession – real GDP growth slowed to just 3.1% y-o-y in Q1 2009 from 7.4% in Q1 2008 – the country should… [Read more]

In case you hadn’t heard, speculation is mounting that the Vietnamese authorities might devalue the dong currency in the near future to boost the country’s exports. Frankly, I am not that surprised, since Vietnam is one of the few Asian countries that have actually increased their export dependency on the US over the past 20… [Read more]