Our Latest Global Insights

Five decades ago Japan was considered nothing short of a miracle. Lacking substantial natural resources and emerging from the ruins of the Second World War, Japan made economic strides purely through ingenuity and industriousness. As the small Pacific country raced ahead in myriad industries such as electronics, steel making, and automobiles, it was crowned a high-tech champion. Fast-forward to today. Japan is still in the spotlight –but for all the wrong reasons.

Sequestration, a series of automatic cuts to U.S. federal government spending, was proposed as part of a broader deal to increase the federal government’s borrowing limit in 2011. After the failure of last minute bipartisan efforts in the Congress, the spending cuts will now happen as scheduled. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that sequestration would lower U.S. economic growth for the current year by 0.5 percentage points to 1.5%. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has pegged its GDP growth forecast for 2013 at 1.4%.

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With the rising strength and the wealth of the potential African flyer, global airlines are being forced to take a serious look at the African air travel market. Starved of profits in most developed economies, major global airlines view Africa as the last major frontier from which to reap some riches.

Global economic trends turned softer during the month of March as indicators from Europe showed further declines and U.S. consumer sentiment moderated on labor market uncertainties, government spending cuts, and tax increases. Continuing weakness in European demand has somewhat dulled the export outlook for emerging economies, while government policies to prevent excessive asset price inflation have led to concerns about domestic consumption growth in these countries.

Major emerging Asia Pacific economies, which picked up growth momentum during the latter half of 2012, struggled to carry forward the economic pace during the initial months of 2013.

Hungarian real estate entrepreneur Sandor Demjan, who is the chairman of TriGranit Development Corporation, has come up the hard way. Starting off by launching the first department store in the then communist country, Demjan dabbled in banking and investments before focusing on real estate sector as his business of choice. Today, TriGranit is the biggest real estate firm in central Europe with projects spread across Poland, Russia, and Slovakia. Still, Demjan’s business achievements owe a lot to the relatively lighter control exercised by Soviet Union over Hungary compared to its other satellite states.

The great Brazilian middle class – defined as those who earn between $690 and $2,970 a month – has arrived and is here to stay. If Brazil has made a name in the global retail sector, it had better thank these late comers, empowered with good purchasing power and access to credit.

Sweden's export-dependent economy was badly shaken by the financial crisis. However, the largest economy in the Scandinavian region staged a comeback in 2010, helped by strong public spending and a pick-up in external demand, and appears set to retain its rightful place as a truly globalized and competitive economy in the years ahead.