August 18th, 2018
Via The Diplomat, commentary on why Central Asian countries are betting on the BRI for long-term benefits, despite the apparent risks: The transfer of Hambantota deep-water port in Sri Lanka to China through 2116 set off alarm bells across Asia. Those already warning that China’s ambitious infrastructure development project, the Belt Road Initiative (BRI), was […]
Read more »Three Asian Markets Worthy of Attention: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam
August 18th, 2018
Via Investment Week, a look at Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam: The consumer boom in Asia shows no sign of slowing down. With more than half the world’s population, and home to over half of the world’s ten fastest growing major economies, Asia enjoys growth that the West can only dream of. And it is […]
Read more »August 17th, 2018
Via 38North, commentary on North Korea’s economy: Kim Jong Un has based his claim to legitimacy as North Korea’s leader on economic performance. This makes him more vulnerable to economic crises than his predecessors. If he wants to stay in power and achieve Korean unification under his leadership, he will have to succeed in making […]
Read more »Aspirations of Pakistan’s Middle Class
August 14th, 2018
Via the Arab News, interesting commentary on Pakistan’s middle class: Pakistan’s recent elections, which crowned the rise of Imran Khan from cricket star to likely prime minister, spawned numerous hand-wringing articles of the “whither Pakistan?” variety. Most of the articles in the global media focused on a similar theme: The multiple and multiplying economic, social […]
Read more »August 4th, 2018
Via National Interest, a look at Afghanistan’s economic situation: As recently as four years ago, Afghanistan’s war economy was on the brink of collapse when unemployment soared following the departure of thousands of American and foreign forces that had, in effect, created a parallel economy. At the time, the Afghan government had no functioning fiscal […]
Read more »Venezuela: Striking It Poor
August 2nd, 2018
Courtesy of Foreign Policy, a sobering look at the tragic — and totally avoidable — self-destruction of one of the world’s richest oil economies: In the spring of 1959, at a secretive meeting at a yacht club in Cairo, Venezuela’s then-minister of mines and hydrocarbons, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, hatched a plan to give big […]
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