Posts under ‘Globalisation’

There’s a brand new database from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), designed to warn stylish women of the world’s most dangerous shopping deserts. Places with virtually no cash dispensers at all, and hardy a single bank branch available within an area of 1,000 square kilometres! Places such as Botswana, Laos and Afghanistan.
 
In addition, this very [...]

Just in case you haven’t heard about it: the World Bank has recently opened its online statistical database to everyone, making it available for free, precisely at http://data.worldbank.org.
 
The offer includes the Bank’s world development indicators, its global development finance data, the Africa development indicators, the global economic monitor, and last but not least some [...]

In the latest edition of its World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has this week stated that the global economy “is recovering from the global crisis better than expected”. However, the organisation sees activity reviving at different speeds in different parts of the world. Plus it warns of certain stability risks ahead and [...]

It seems as though I was lucky last Thursday night when I returned from my trip to Russia just before air space was closed. Clearly one of the last people to get through on schedule!
 
First worries about the return journey began to emerge when a fruit exporter from South Africa told me about a [...]

Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, last week published its long-awaited 2009 external trade statistics. As everyone expected, they don’t make for happy reading at all. Instead, they prove just how strongly international trade came under pressure in the wake of the global economic downturn that escalated in late 2008 and went on to unleash [...]

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 [...]

For a moment, I thought my ear seal had dematerialised. It fell off my headset when I tried to answer the telephone in a rush this morning, and then it was gone. Not under my desk, apparently. But not on my desk either, not behind the keyboard, not behind the telephone.
 

 
Even though I’m yet [...]

Following Monday’s tough choice in favour of commodity price trends and against the 216 page atlas on globalisation from Le Monde Diplomatique, I’ve finally got around to having a closer look at the latter. To sum it up in a nutshell: very informative and definitely worth a read. Loads of figures and charts from serious [...]