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 [...]
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 [...]
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 — [...]
The International Monetary Fund has warned that it could freeze further financial assistance to Armenia if the authorities in Yerevan continue to heavily intervene in the local financial market to prop up the national currency, the dram.
The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) admitted intensifying its monetary interventions this month but insisted [...]
As the United States spends money it doesn’t have (much of it borrowed from China ironically) …
to manipulate housing prices upward, and get its debt-laden consumers to spend with financial handouts, bail out its financial oligarchs and funnel money into states so its public sector employees have no need to make any [...]
The Kuwait China Investment Company (KCIC) is one of a number of firms in the Gulf seeking to build commercial and financial bonds between the Middle East and Asia, preparing to profit from a rise in consumer spending there as global economies recover.
“We’re very much a domestic consumption story philosophy,” said [...]
It seems that Thailand’s retail sector is helping to lead the country out of economic recession, with rising consumer confidence and low interest rates keeping the cash registers ringing.
The Thai economy plunged into recession this year, contracting by 7.1% in the first quarter and 4.9% in the second. Though the rate of contraction in [...]
There is more to Pakistan than just suicide bombs. Economic growth, and its distribution, is also important, and not just because economically marginalized people have a greater propensity to join up with the terrorists.
Pakistan desperately needs foreign investment to overcome persistent budget and trade deficits, but flows have been hit hard by the triple [...]
Another interesting new entry to country ETFs is the Market Vectors Viet Nam ETF, which offers exposure to a new emerging market that has previously been unavailable to US investors
Van Eck Global launched the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (VNM) today. Not only is this the first US-listed Vietnam fund, but it is also the [...]