Posts under ‘China’

Following last week’s look at key trends that will shape the global economy this year and beyond, today I’m keeping my promise to have a look at how all this translates into hard figures. All based on the opinion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which published its latest World Economic Outlook Update as recently [...]

The key message we’ve been getting when thumbing through the international papers (and looking at statistical data) during the past few months is: the world economy is sort of stabilising on a low level, with recession technically over in most countries; but the recovery is shaky and who knows what’s waiting for us around the corner. [...]

 
As promised yesterday, here’s a roundup of economic developments that dared to happen between Christmas Eve and yesterday, while most of us were on holiday and not doing much except sleeping in, putting our feet up, lighting candles, extinguishing fires, and meeting family & friends.
 
But not everyone was that lazy, so here’s a list [...]

The United Nation’s two-week summit on climate change issues in Copenhagen is over, and the thin results have disappointed many, not least because there is such a sharp contrast with the high hopes that the event had been burdoned with. But were the high hopes ever justified? And what’s going to happen next?
 
 
The UN summit on [...]

I don’t usually read management literature (not for the little dream team at my office that could easily work without me), but even I have noticed that Asia has been pretty hip in management literature for quite some time.
 
However, it wasn’t until my last couple of weeks off plus a number of fun trips [...]

Without a lot of introduction, here are four pieces of news that will not normally make big headlines but that are important and interesting nonetheless. Here we go:
 
 

According to a report from the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the economic downturn has lead to a strong increase of hunger and [...]

Here’s an interesting quote: “I would say there’s no recovery yet,” US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview on ABC last week. “We define recovery [...] as people back to work, people able to get a job again, businesses investing again [...] and we’re not at that point.”
 
His words, referring to conditions in [...]

Pictures of Earth from space are among my favourite kinds of photography. Not sure why, but looking at them really takes speed out of a hectic day at the office. Lets the pulse slow down. Aaaahhhhhhh…..  So I was delighted to hear that pictures from space are now moving into the global economic debate, offering [...]

Sweeping together my last scraps of energy before I went off into the weekend last Friday, I wrote about how exports from Germany are growing again, albeit from a very low level. In June, exports from Germany were 22% lower than a year earlier, but up by a surprisingly high 7% month-on-month (see the full [...]

Here’s a little map that I spotted recently, published by World Trade Organisation (WTO) and highlighting the importance of the world’s main regions for China’s export industry. As widely known, China’s economy is firmly based on exports, and its foreign sales amounted to USD1.2 trillion in 2007, corresponding to a massive 37% of GDP.
 

 
In [...]