UIU hosts vital lecture on Bangladesh’s economic challenges
Amid growing concerns over the state of its economy, Bangladesh’s United International University (UIU) took a proactive step by organizing a lecture series titled ‘State of the Bangladesh Economy: Riding Bumpy Times’. Held on its Dhaka campus, this event featured former World Bank lead economist Zahid Hussain as the keynote speaker, who delved into the intricate challenges the nation faces. Moderated by the dean of the school of business and economics, Professor Mohammad Musa, the event aimed to shed light on critical economic issues and foster a discourse on potential solutions.
China sets ambitious 2024 economic target
China has set an ambitious growth target of around 5 percent for this year, as it outlined a series of measures aimed at boosting its flagging economy.
Premier Li Qiang made the announcement at the opening of the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) on Tuesday.
Mr Li acknowledged that China’s economic performance had faced “difficulties”, adding that many of these had “yet to be resolved”.
It comes as China struggles to reinvigorate its once-booming economy.
“Risks and potential dangers in real estate, local government debt, and small and medium financial institutions were acute in some areas,” he said. “Under these circumstances, we faced considerably more dilemmas in making policy decisions and doing our work.”
A series of other measures to help tackle the country’s slow recovery from the pandemic were also announced, including the development of new initiatives to tackle problems in the country’s crisis-hit property sector. Beijing also aims to add 12 million jobs in urban areas.
Regulation of financial markets will also be increased, said Premier Li, while research will be stepped up in new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and life sciences.
Along with measures to boost the economy, defence spending will be increased by 7.2 percent this year.
India seeing its strongest economic growth in six quarters
The last three months of 2023 saw the strongest rate of growth in India’s economy in 1.5 years, driven by robust manufacturing and building activity that improves Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic record just months before a national election according to Reuters.
India being the third-largest economy in Asia expanded by 8.4 percent during the October–December quarter, considerably quicker than the 7.6 percent growth seen in the preceding three months and far faster than the 6.6 percent predicted by Reuters polling experts.
According to Indian rating analyst Sunil Kumar Sinha “The ongoing growth momentum is indicative of the Indian economy’s resilience, notwithstanding global headwinds”. He also founded that industrial growth maintained strong trend during the quarter.
With China still failing to recover from the epidemic and the euro zone just avoiding recession, India’s economy is among the fastest growing in the world and has regularly outperformed market predictions.
India updated its growth projection from 7.3 percent to 7.6 percent for the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31.
Modi’s chances might be improved by such a great performance in the final significant economic data release before the May elections, because he has made robust economic growth a central tenet of his campaign trail speeches.
Will Nikkei’s record-breaking rally sustain even as Japan’s economy sputters?
Japan’s Nikkei stock index has been on a record-breaking spree on the back of robust earnings and investor-friendly measures. But the country’s ailing economy has experts divided over this sustainability of this rally.
The Nikkei 225 surged past the 40,000 mark on Monday, with some economists forecasting it still has room to climb, having surpassed the 1989 record high of 38,915.87 last month.
“I would not be surprised if Nikkei hit 50,000 in a matter of a few years. Sector-wise, high-tech related companies will continue to be promising,” Kazuo Momma, Mizuho Research Institute’s executive economist, told CNBC via email.
Japan’s corporate governance reforms have been a key driver for the country’s stock markets, Momma said, while stressing that stock indexes do not necessarily represent the entire economy that includes SMEs and households.
SMEs are a critical lever in the Japanese economy, accounting for 70 percent of national employment and 50 percent of the country’s economic growth.
Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto vows to boost economic growth to 8pc within five years
Indonesia’s presumed next president Prabowo Subianto has said economic growth can accelerate to 8 percent within five years and vowed to maintain fiscal discipline when he takes the helm of south-east Asia’s largest economy.
Speaking at an investment forum in Jakarta on Tuesday, Prabowo also promised a smooth transition from the current government of Joko Widodo and said his administration would build on the economic foundations laid by his predecessor.
The former military general and current defence minister won nearly 60 percent of the vote in February’s election, according to unofficial results from sample ballots. Official results are due this month and, if confirmed, Prabowo will be inaugurated as president in October.
Malaysia construction industry research report 2024-2033
The construction market in Malaysia is divided into six sectors, namely Commercial Construction, Industrial Construction, Infrastructure Construction, Energy and Utilities Construction, Institutional Construction and Residential Construction. In 2023, the infrastructure construction sector accounted for the highest market share, followed by residential construction.
Strengths of Malaysian construction sector are attributed by capabilities of Malaysian construction companies to implement projects namely construction of buildings, roads and highways, railways, bridges and airports, water treatment and power plants; steel structure fabrication, installation and erection; mixed development projects including housing, hotels, leisure and luxury residences; and building maintenance, including for high-rise towers.
The Maldives is a tiny paradise
Between a few flecks of coral in the Indian Ocean, a ribbon of highway more than a mile long swoops up from the blue. Since 2018, the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge has connected this archipelago’s hyper-dense capital, Malé, and the international airport — expanded by Chinese companies — one island to the east.
But China is not alone in chasing friendship with the Maldives. A 20-minute walk across the capital, next to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, an even longer sea bridge will link Malé with islands to the west. This one is being built by Indian workers, with money from India.
The Maldives, a tiny tourism-dependent country of 500,000 people, barely registers as a blip alongside India and China, the world’s most populous nations. Yet every blip counts in the two giants’ competition for influence across South Asia, and that has set the Maldives on a zigzagging course between them.
South China sea: Beijing hits back at Philippine envoy over economic coercion claims
China has accused a top Philippine envoy of “reckless speculation”, hitting back at the official’s claim that Beijing was using economic coercion against Manila in their dispute over the South China Sea.
In a Chinese-language statement on Sunday, the Chinese embassy in the Philippines also accused Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, of “disregarding basic facts, recklessly speculating on the South China Sea issue, and engaging in empty speculation and malicious smearing of China”.
The Philippines should stop “drawing wolves into the house and forming a ‘clique’”, which it said “would never help resolve the South China Sea disputes”.
“On the contrary, it will only complicate the situation in the region, jeopardise regional peace and stability, and undermine its own security,” the embassy said.
“We strongly advise the people concerned to stop spreading the ‘China threat theory’, to refrain from spreading ‘persecution paranoia’ … and to do more for the benefit of their own people and the friendship between China and the Philippines.”
The statement was in response to Romualdez’s assessment that his country’s agricultural exports to China could be “in peril” as maritime tensions with China grew.
Taylor swift concert to contribute $400m to Singapore’s economy
American singer Taylor Swift’s concerts are estimated to contribute nearly US$400 million to Singapore’s economy.
“I can assure members of the House that the economic benefits to Singapore are assessed to be significant,” The Straits Times quoted Singapore’s Minister of Culture, Community, and Youth Edwin Tong as saying.
He highlighted direct economic advantages, including increased tourist arrivals, spending on tickets, flights, hotel accommodations, as well as entertainment, retail, and dining in Singapore.
Swift’s concerts are projected to generate S$350-500 million ($260.3-371.9 million) in tourism receipts, assuming approximately 70 percent of concertgoers are flying in from overseas, according to Erica Tay, director of macro research at Maybank.
Following the announcement of the concert dates, Singapore hotel bookings for March 2024 surged by 10 percent, according to data from hotel analytics company Smith Travel Research.
Both Singapore’s flagship carrier Singapore Airlines and budget airline Scoot reported increased demand for flights to Singapore in March, particularly from Southeast Asia.
Jetstar Asia also confirmed a roughly 20 percent surge in demand for routes connecting destinations like Bangkok, Manila, and Jakarta to Singapore, CNBC reported.
In July 2023, UOB, a Singaporean regional bank, recorded an average increase of 45 percent in daily credit card applications in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam after Swift announced her performances in Singapore. The surge was attributed to UOB cardholders gaining early access to concert tickets.
Her Eras Tour in the U.S. last year was estimated to generate around $4.6 billion in consumer spending.
Singapore is positioning “concert economics” as a new growth driver, potentially adding hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism receipts.
In Sri Lanka, the political opposition remains as fragmented as ever
Like a number of other South Asian countries, Sri Lanka will hold elections this year. Both the government and the opposition are busy preparing themselves for polls. Presidential elections are expected to take place in September or October, though timelines have not been announced yet. Some analysts believe general elections will follow a presidential election, while others believe they will precede it.
The island nation, which faced its worst-ever economic crisis in 2022, has managed to bring about some political and economic stability – though this stability remains fragile and superficial, if not deceptive.
The government, headed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has seemingly managed to get things back in order. The country has imposed on itself several painful austerity measures, with assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Asian Development Bank, in addition to support from other countries, including India.
Since 2022, Sri Lanka’s economy has seemingly fared well. The country managed to secure an agreement with the IMF on an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program in 2023. While the economy grew by 1.6 percent in the third quarter of 2023, inflation, which stood at 56 percent in December 2022, came down to 4.2 percent a year later.
However, while the situation has improved on some fronts, political uncertainty looms large over the island, as policy decisions have fueled polarization nearly everywhere. They have also ruptured conventional political divisions and patterns.
So far, Sri Lanka has made progress on restructuring around $11 billion of bilateral debt. It expects to come into an agreement with private creditors and bondholders, though the latter remain cautious if not wary.