Tag Archives: GDP

The future of Africa will depend on its ability to use the industrialization opportunity presented by the AfCFTA.

The great recession left nearly all advanced economies with substantially higher debt-to-GDP ratios and in many cases with lingering economic weakness that further complicates short-term efforts at fiscal consolidation. But the longer-term challenges the Western economies face are in many cases related to the future fiscal challenge of growing primary deficits.

Economists from rich countries increasingly agree: Sustainable development and reducing inequality matter more than economic growth.

China has dipped back into its ‘old bag of tricks’ and attempted to rev up the export engine one more time in order to give its flagging economy a much needed ‘shot in the arm’. The marching orders for Chinese policy makers are stability above all, reform when suitable and pragmatism always.

Japan, along with the rest of Asia, must seize anew the opportunity to join in shaping the future of the regional architecture. During the lost decades, Japan’s Achilles heel was its inability to see the bigger picture. Japan must now ‘think big’ and engage multilaterally for the Asian regional order.

Indonesia's budget is a bold strategy to change the direction of its economy. But, the rush for results is a risky strategy because it could delay essential reform and harm the government’s credibility if the budget’s ambitious targets are not met.

The rise of Asia might be better conceived as the re-emergence of a world in which population size and economic size are closely linked. The global diffusion of technology, and institutions, has given poor but populous countries an opportunity to catch up.

The prosperity of Sudan’s boom years ended when South Sudan seceded in 2011 and delivered a serious blow to its economy. The end of the oil years has reversed the great expansion of the middle class. Presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for 2015. Whether the hitherto quiescent Khartoum bourgeoisie will make apparent its dissatisfaction at its bowed circumstances is one of Sudan’s pressing political questions.

Bad and incomplete data bedevils African statistics. Seventeen African countries have not conducted a census in the past decade and five have not done so in 20 years.

Fed rate rises may possibly cool down US growth, worsen the US trade deficit, draw capital from poorer regions, and move exchange rates in a direction that may not ease tensions with China. The exact impact depends on timing, how far and how fast.