In the wake of the recent global recession, many investors have looked to Asia to lead the way to recovery.
Emerging economies such as China and India have continued to expand at impressive pace, while Australia was recently one of the first developed markets to raise interest rates. But among these hot zones, [...]
Last week was a busy time in Papua New Guinea. On Tuesday the Treasurer presented the 2010 budget to Parliament, and as these things tend to do it had something for everyone, most notably a 7.5 billion Kina ($3.2 billion) increase in spending and no increase in taxes. Major beneficiaries were education and government employees, [...]
This past Thursday in the village of Tari in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea a delegation of senior government ministers and members of Parliament were pelted with stones by an angry mob.
The police fired several shots in the air, which were met by a single shot from the crowd. No [...]
Asia-Pacific ministers warned Wednesday that signs of recovery in the global economy are merely a respite, and future growth hinges on freer trade and improved social safety nets in Asia.
Finance and foreign ministers meeting in Singapore for this week’s annual APEC meeting are mulling ways to keep economic recovery going once lavish stimulus spending ebbs, [...]
Ensuring domestic food security and developing a viable export sector are at the heart of Brunei’s efforts to establish a strong commercial food processing industry.
However, the country has to balance its staunch commitment to environmental protection with the need to achieve self-sufficiency in basic staples. At present, Brunei Darussalam’s agriculture [...]
UBS has upgraded its growth outlook for the Philippines for next year alongside a modest global recovery and benign inflation prospects. UBS also sees a long-term bearish trend for the U.S. dollar, which in turn could fuel a peso appreciation against the greenback.
In a briefing on Thursday, UBS global economist Paul Donovan cautioned against overoptimism [...]
To anyone who has studied anthropology – it was my major in college – a visit to Papua New Guinea can’t fail to excite. PNG, a country with over 1,000 tribes and 700 languages – nearly half the world’s total – has almost certainly been the source of more anthropological monographs than any [...]
Already one of the largest bond markets in Asia, Malaysia is working to expand its bond activity horizontally and vertically, extending the scope of existing products while planning to offer new products to attract more funds.
As part of these efforts the Malaysian stock exchange is looking to encourage wider bond activity, having announced plans to [...]
The Philippines boasts one of the few banking sectors around the world to have evaded many of the consequences of the US-led financial turmoil.
Certainly much is owed to lessons learned in the form of strong monetary and fiscal policy reforms after the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98. Relatively conservative banking practices also played a significant [...]
Like many sectors of the Malaysian economy, the country’s transport industry has experienced a decline in activity due to the global recession. Though there are some signs that Malaysia’s transporters are again moving in the right direction, other signals suggest a full recovery is still some time off.
There was mixed news for the transport sector [...]