Global manufacturing industry ended 2009 on what seems to be a fairly positive footing, with the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI posting a comfortable 55.0 in December, up from 53.7 in November, significantly above that critical 50 growth / contraction dividing line.
December’s was the highest reading for 44 months, and the headline Global PMI has [...]
As we all live in the present, it is very hard to fully assess the future implications of decisions supported or made by political and business leaders. An extraordinary game of geo-strategy is under way to lock in long-term agreements, notably in the energy sector.
At a global level, the transit routes of future oil [...]
While many Western investors remain fixated on somehow acquiring a slice of Turkmenistan’s natural gas riches, despite a recent scandal over the country’s actual reserves, there is another country further east whose energy and mineralogical reserves have been overlooked – Uzbekistan.
While a number of factors are responsible for this oversight, including relative geographical isolation (Uzbekistan, [...]
The face of Malaysia’s banking sector is set to change next year, with a number of new overseas banks in line to receive licences to enter the market, a move that is expected to increase competition and stimulate domestic lenders to improve services.
Malaysia has not issued any new licences to foreign operators [...]
North Korea’s government has reportedly sparked panic buying by its citizens after it announced plans to redenominate the won.
North Koreans have been given until Sunday to exchange their old currency for the new one, but the government has limited the maximum number of notes that can be converted, according to media reports.
The [...]
Malaysia is looking to genetics to help its palm oil industry improve productivity, while enhacing the image of the sector at a time when it is seeking to capture a bigger share of the global vegetable oil market.
Widely used in cooking oil, other foods, cosmetics and biofuels, palm oil is a major [...]
Thailand is planning to step up spending on information and communications technology (ICT) in order to strengthen the education system and better prepare the country’s youth to work in an increasingly knowledge-based society.
As part of a programme of reforms for the education system, the government has announced it will quadruple the number [...]
Armenia is learning the right lessons from its ongoing recession and should respond to it with radical reforms in order to return to the path of robust economic growth, a senior World Bank official said on Friday.
“When 30 percent of the economy is composed of income produced in one sector — [...]
Paris based Alcatel-Lucent has made a succesful bid to be included in what is one of the largest LTE trials to date, with Singapore Telecoms.
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) has been selected as one of the vendors by SingTel for its Long Term Evolution (LTE) trial, which kick off in the first half of 2010. [...]
Since the opening up in the mid-1990s, uranium exploration in Mongolia by international companies has not been subject to any clear national policy or close regulation.
In the last few years, however, the Government has sought to exercise more control over the whole mining sector and earlier this year it set up MonAtom to undertake [...]