Last Week in the Global Economy (9-13 July)
Frontier Research does this nifty summary as a part of its overall range of news products, usually for private clients. They scour through the myriad goings on in the global economy so you don’t have to, and bring out what’s relevant from a Sri Lankan non-expert’s perspective. Pretty useful if you’re generally into economics, or just want to get a feel of current hot topics. Here I’ve syndicated their Weekly News Summary with permission. The Indian economy is drawing quite a few uncanny parallels with Sri Lanka’s and global markets primarily reacted to goings on in China.
The Week in Global Markets
Markets in Asia fell as economic slowdown in China, Korea and Australia sparked fears of lower corporate profits. Meanwhile US markets rose on hopes of policy easing in China, as the latter saw its slowest economic expansion in three years. Euro markets also advanced on similar hopes while Italy’s falling borrowing costs also contributed to optimism. Oil rose on speculation of Chinese stimulus and on the back of tightening US sanctions on Iran.
The Week in Economic Views
India’s emerging fiscal and BOP problems are uncannily similar to Sri Lanka as the latter battles an expansion of its Current Account and doubts as to whether it can keep its budget deficit under control.
The US presidential race draws near and ‘outsourcing’ is increasingly becoming a dirty word as candidates seek to distance themselves from it, something regional outsourcing firms should keep an eye on.
An interesting article in this week’s summary discusses the Indian people and their tolerance of government censorship; a topic currently under hot discussion in Sri Lanka.
In Mid 2013, Sri Lanka will have an announcement on how much oil it possesses; a possible game changer for the country. It is worth keeping an eye on new oil rich nations such as Kenya to get an understanding how the impact of oil discovery will flow through to the rest of the economy.
With the emergence of South East Asia as a growth hotspot, global powers are falling over each other to woo the region’s governments and to secure a portion of the pie. South East Asia’s rise poses emerging threats as well as opportunities for Sri Lanka.
In China, while official headline Macro data continues to be reasonable, other news and data has turned much worse; perhaps indicating a need to find alternate data on the Economy for Sri Lanka that could provide similar tracking to assess the latter’s performance as well?
India and Sri Lanka have both suffered large depreciations of their currencies in recent times. Non resident Indians are however inadvertently rallying to their currency’s cause, by investing their dollars in the India to take advantage of the cheaper rupee.
Abdul Khaleq 