Category: ECONOMY

By Jaya Ramachandran
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

PARIS (IDN) – The economies of China and India are poised to outshine those of the United States and Western Europe over the next half century, though an overwhelming majority of the Chinese and Indians are unlikely to attain the living standards of citizens in the rich industrial countries, predicts a new study.

Titled Looking to 2060: A Global Vision of Long-term Growth, the report expects the United States to cede its place as the world’s largest economy to China, as early as 2016. India’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is also projected to exceed that of the U.S. over the long term.

By Martin Khor*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

GENEVA (IDN) – There were sobering messages on global economic prospects emerging from the 2012 meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on October 14 in Tokyo.

Developing countries’ Finance Ministers and Central Bank officials voiced their concerns on the failure of developed countries to deal with their economic situation and on the policy and political paralysis preventing solutions.

By Martin Khor *
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

The Eurozone crisis and the slowdown of the U.S. economy is impacting China, India and major countries in South America and Africa. They are increasingly faced with deterioration in GDP growth and exports. The forecast of a “staggering rise of the South” is turning out to be a myth.

GENEVA (IDN) – Developing countries are increasingly being adversely affected by the economic recession in Europe and the slowdown in the United States. The hope that major emerging economies like China, India and Brazil would continue to have robust growth, de-coupling from Western economies and becoming an alternative engine of global growth has been dashed by recent data showing that they are themselves weakening.

By Santo Das Gupta
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

PARIS (IDN) – The prospects for the world economy look rather gloomy in the coming two years, says a respectable international economic organisation of 34 countries. The situation can, however, be redeemed if leading industrial and emerging countries take “bold decisions” to get the global economy back on track, it adds.

By Raul de Sagastizabal*
IDN-InDepth NewsEssay

MONTEVIDEO (IDN) – The storm that threatens the global economy has been raging ever since the toxic assets crisis started five long years ago. That crisis has not ended, or receded, but transformed into multiple crises: from fiscal deficit and sovereign debt to poverty, unemployment and the rise in food and fuel prices. Nevertheless, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had to get its face wet to take note of the storm and rain.

By Barry Grey*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

LOS ANGELES (IDN) – Three years after the Wall Street crash of 2008, finance ministers, central bankers and economists assembled in Washington for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank present a picture of perplexity and fear as the crisis spins out of control and lurches toward a full-scale depression.

By Steffen Dyck*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

While media reports are emphasising the role China could play in assisting to resolve the Eurozone debt crisis, a Deutsche Bank research analyst, Steffen Dyck, warns that expectations pinned on China might be far from realistic. The amount needed when looking at estimated refinancing needs for 2012 is huge, totalling EUR 730 billion for the GIIPS countries – an acronym for Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Reports of stocks plummeting and investor confidence diminishing dominated news cycles even as President Barack Obama attempted to reassure fellow-Americans – and the world – that their confidence in the country’s continuing strength would endure.

Speaking directly to the White House press corps and projecting his remarks to broader publics, Obama asserted that “markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America, and no matter what some agency may say, we always have been and always will be a triple-A country.”