BRICS Member States: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The concept of “BRIC” was first put forward by the Goldman Sachs Group which is an American multinational investment banking firm in 2001. It is the title of an association of emerging national economies which including Brazil, Russia, India and China. Due to the participation of South Africa in 2010, the name changed to BRICS. Its members are all developing or newly industrialized countries, except Russia to some degree. The reason why the BRICS is highly concerned by the mass media and international community perhaps owing to the five BRICS countries represent almost 3 billion people of the world. Besides the GDP of BRICS occupies US$ 14.8 trillion and estimated US$ 4 trillion in combined foreign reserves which according to World Economic Outlook by International Monetary Fund as of 2013. Furthermore, it is becoming a large, fast-growing economies and significant influence on regional and global affairs. Comparing with other international organizations such as WTO, G20 and even ASEAN, BRICS still need to improve on the cooperation mechanism and organization structure issues etc. However, in the long term, the opportunities and challenges will always be significant projects to BRICS. Read the rest of this entry »
These two simple words “Factory Asia” can visually define Asia’s growth performance over the last two decades. The first impression of Asia from Western aspect would be growing population that can provide cheap and abundant labor. However, the map of products produced and traded by Asian economies rapidly changed from low value sectors (i.e. agriculture) to manufacturing and services in recent years. According to the conference record from the 46th Annual Meeting of The Board of Governors in Delhi in May, 2013, developing economies in Asia have revealed remarkable growth over the past few decades. Meanwhile, strong growth combined with visible reductions in poverty has encountered a setback during the global financial crisis. Hence, in order to absolutely implement the innovation of Asian economy, the relevant actions and adjustments must be carried. Read the rest of this entry »
Huawei launched latest Smartphone G520 with next generation of Touch-screen and self-designed software.
Huawei , as one of the world’s leading telecom products suppliers which has relied on cutthroat pricing and has been working its way up the food chain of telecom market and its rise has worried some other phone carriers and producers such as Apple, ZTE and HTC, is using its enormous scale and financial strength to invest money into research and jumping ahead of its weakened rivals in parts of the global technology race. According to the Asian News Network, it is reported that Huawei boosted its Research-and-development spending by more than a quarter in 2012 to $4.7 billion, which is just a hair behind Ericsson, the No.1 telecom equipment vendor by revenue, which spent $4.8 billion on R&D last year. Based on the market share record, Huawei has occupied approximately 4.9 market share in 2012. The leap towards the top is an achievement for Huawei in recent years. The fast speed growing for Huawei has brought more than billions of dollars benefits for this enterprise. Will Huawei become next Apply and make a huge difference and evolution in Smartphone industry? Read the rest of this entry »
In the twenty-first session of the ASEAN summit, ASEAN leaders agreed to establish the ASEAN Community at the end of 2015. However, there are only less than three years before the deadline until now. Base on the blueprint of ASEAN Community, it should be possible to build a prototype of the community for ASEAN in the next 3 years, according to Liu Ming, Deputy Director of Institute of International Relations of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Nevertheless, although ASEAN has its own competitive advantages and opportunities, it is unpractical for ASEAN to establish a high integrated union like EU in a short term if the challenges cannot be dealt with properly
The ASEAN Economic Community goal consists of five aspects: accessibility of trade and investment, regional trade interdependence, economic related laws and a unified political system, the formation of the single market and production base, and to establish economic authority beyond its members. In fact, AEC can be considered as an upgraded version of free trade area, namely in the foundation of zero trade tariffs, which will make the freedom of movement about goods, services, investment and technology workers possible. However, there is still a long way for ASEAN to establish the political, economic and social – cultural community goals. Whether ASEAN can achieve the goal on schedule in 2015, in particular to found economic community, is still have a lot of questions. Read the rest of this entry »
The global economy is slowing down since the financial crises in 2007 and 2008, which still has a major impact on labor markets, financial institutions and currencies. Recently Cyprus´ economy had to be rescued by the European Union, as it was facing issues that the country could not overcome on its own anymore. Not only banks but also entire countries fail on meeting their financial obligations which frightens economist and the global community. Japan has been always known as a strong economy even though they faced trade and currency issues in the past. However, even Japan struggles to find its way out of its current economic situation which is dominated by slow growth, strong yen, slumping productions and export. It has to be asked if the economic reforms by the new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, called “Abenomics” will lead Japan out of its current recession. Read the rest of this entry »
A laser consists of light but yet it behaves different than light usually does. It is a bundled beam of light that does not spread but stays focused in one point and only consists of one color. Just as a laser is different from other sources of light Impact Investment differs from a regular investment. Traditional investments are aimed at maximizing financial resources no matter the industry or region; investors look for opportunities that are secure and beneficial for them. In the 1990 Jed Emerson, an economist who has been working with several investment foundations, developed the ideology of blended value. This is a concept considering both in an investment, the financial as well as the social impact. Later when we entered the new millennium similar concepts were thought of such as corporate social responsibility and the triple bottom line. Investments were no longer considered simply as a numbers game; people and the environment were taken into consideration as well. Eventually in 2007 the term “Impact Investment” was used the first time. Although it has not become clear during the research for this blog who exactly used the term for the first time but different definitions given by different institutions such as Monitor Group, J.P. Morgan, Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) essentially all say the same as mentioned earlier: Impact Investment takes social and environmental impacts into considerations instead of just focusing on financial gain. Read the rest of this entry »
After the Second World War the world seems more united and wars are less likely to happen because nations know what causes it can have on an entire population. As argued by Samuel Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilization”, wars happen because it lies within human nature. This pessimistic worldview is part of the dominant realist school of thought within the realm of international relations and is based on the premise that war will happen in the future because nations differ in cultures, norms, values and beliefs. For many years now, North Korea and South Korea have been at war and have not been able to sort out their differences. Despite various diplomatic efforts such as the so called “Six Party Talks” which are aimed at ending North Korea´s nuclear program involving negotiations between China, the US, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia, no peace treaty has been signed yet.
North Korea seems to be on the path of war, as they recently on 30 March declared” state of war” with South Korea. The following video informs over North Koreas recent actions and the reactions of the United States, reported by BBC News.
After the global recession in 2008 most people may have thought that bail-outs were the end of things, but five years later banks and even entire countries still default on their financial obligations. In case of Cyprus´ recent economic failures have forced the Cypriot government to ask for a bail-out from the European Union in order to safeguard the country´s economy. On 25 March it was decided by the European commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Council of European Central Bank (ECB) to provide Cyprus with a bail-out package of € 10 billion euros. As recently reported by The Economist, Cyprus is one of the four euro-zone countries after Greece, Ireland and Portugal to receive a bail-out in order to save the economy and to protect the euro-zone. The institutions which are affected immediately are Cyprus banks which face major liquidity issues as a result of a general mistrust of Cypriot citizens. Read the rest of this entry »
History still plays a very important role in many of the world´s contemporary issues. This is represented by the long-lasting conflict mainly between China and Japan over five small islands in the South East China Sea. The dispute concerns the “Senkatu” islands which are rich in oil, gas and fishery resources. China, Japan as well as Taiwan claim rights to these islands, which are situated along the borders of these countries. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, the country which holds sovereignty over the islands is also in possession of the natural resources. Nevertheless it is not quite clear to whom the islands belong after wars and disputes contributed to confusion and different opinions concerning the rights of possession.
The current discord can be actually described from political, economic and legal angels which seriously complicates the whole situation. Read the rest of this entry »
For approximately 40 years Myanmar, also known as Burma was an isolated country which struggled with problems such as human rights abuses and political as well as ethnic tensions. However, Myanmar managed to have free and fair elections in April 2012 and the government signed ceasefire agreements with some of the ethnic groups, which were fighting the government for instance the Karen ethnic groups. Kachin, a region in the north of Myanmar next to China and India, had been involved in a civil war for 60 years now. Furthermore, restrictions on the media were removed which gives journalists more freedom of the press (The Economist). That means that reporters no longer have to send a pre-publication to the government for censorship anymore. Many political commentators describe this positive development as an “opening up” of Myanmar. Read the rest of this entry »
