Tag Archives: Asia’s Frontier Markets

By one measure of economic success, Asia’s largest frontier markets rank below most of their global peers. Pakistan, beset by social welfare challenges such as illiteracy, has a per-capita GDP of $1,300. Vietnam, which didn’t begin to transition to a market economy until the late 1980s, does better at $2,100. By comparison, Africa’s largest frontier markets, Nigeria and Morocco, each have per-capita GDPs of $3,300, while those in Europe and the Middle East range between...

China has an outsize influence on Asia’s frontier markets – whether as an infrastructure investor or an end-market for exporters. Recently, however, frontier markets are taking on a different role in relation to their larger neighbor – that of competitors. Hear what Chate Benchavitvalai, Head of Frontier Market Research and Vietnam Strategy at Credit Suisse, had to say at the Bank’s 2016 Asian Investment Conference about the changing nature of the relationship between China and frontier...

Asia’s frontier markets are growing very quickly, but every one of them still has plenty of challenges to overcome. Hear what Vikas Cheranewal, Senior Executive Director of the Emerging Markets group at Franklin Templeton Asset Management, said about infrastructure, energy, and politics in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.  

After domestic concerns over foreign direct investment (FDI) and slumping metal prices slowed Mongolia’s economy to a crawl in 2015, Prime Minister Saikhanbileg Chimed wants to reassure investors that they are welcome in his country.   “My message is a simple one. Mongolia is back and open for business,” Saikhanbileg said in a speech at the AIC 2016 on April 7.   Opposition groups have protested against some major mining projects, causing delays that have now been resolved,...

With 6 percent GDP growth forecast for this year, up from 4.8 percent in 2015, “Sri Lanka is on the move,” the country’s Finance Minister, Ravi Karunanayake, said in a keynote address at the Credit Suisse 2016 Asian Investment Conference (AIC).   Since a new president and prime minister took office at the beginning of 2015, the government has worked to get the country back onto a path of strong economic growth, Karunanayake said. “It was necessary for fiscal consolidation to take...

Quick: Name the Asian country whose cheap labor costs have attracted droves of foreign manufacturers, driving an explosion in export-driven economic activity that is now transitioning to more moderate, consumer-based growth. Did you say China? Vietnam would have been correct, too.   As labor costs have risen dramatically in China over the last several years, a growing number of manufacturers have moved operations from the Middle Kingdom to Vietnam or even decided to set up shop...