Via The Diplomat, a look at Laos’ aspirations to gain centrality in the Greater Mekong Subregion via new infrastructure: The Lao government is strongly pushing ahead with different projects to better connect the country to the main transport networks of the region and integrate it into global value chains. Laos’ landlocked position and natural topography has […]
Read more »Via Quartz, a report on China’s growing influence in Africa: These days, everybody wants a piece of Africa. In 2018 alone, France’s Emmanuel Macron made a historic visit to East Africa, becoming the first French leader to visit Kenya. Former British prime minister Theresa May busted out some awkward dance moves in South Africa, while […]
Read more »Via Harvard Business Review, an article on entering frontier markets where success lies in creating new markets that serve the billions of nonconsumers unable to find a product or service to help them solve an important problem: When a movie is released straight to video, it’s usually a bad sign: Early reviews were negative, the quality […]
Read more »Via the DevPolicy Blog, a look at Papua New Guinea’s economic challenges: According to World Bank data, Papua New Guinea is the tenth most resource intensive economy in the world. Using its measure of underground resource rents (profits from oil, gas, coal and minerals) as a percentage of GDP, out of 205 countries PNG comes […]
Read more »Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, a report on how many of the developing world’s first-time internet consumers are connecting to the web on a new breed of device costing about $25: The hottest phones for the world’s next billion users aren’t made by smartphone leaders Samsung Electronics Co. or Apple Inc. In fact, they aren’t even smartphones. Millions of first-time internet consumers from the […]
Read more »Via Project Syndicate, an interesting look at how – amid bleak GDP-based forecasts of Africa’s economic performance – some investors are tempted to write off the entire continent, but those who seize opportunities to gain an accurate and nuanced picture of Africa’s economic performance and prospects could reap vast rewards: Gross domestic product has been […]
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