BRIC Economies
Articles on economic developments in the BRIC countries - namely Brazil, Russia. India and China
China’s Inflation Problem
China’s inflation rate has climbed to a twelve year high with consumer prices 8.5 per cent higher than they were a year ago. Much of this is the result of the spiraling cost of food (22 per cent higher over the last twelve months).
read more...»Renault-Nissan announce entry into low-cost car market in India
The battle is intensifying to develop, manufacture and sell low priced family cars to meet the burgeoning demand from consumers in emerging markets. Renault and Nissan announced today that they are entering into a joint venture with the India firm Bajaj Motors to jointly build a $2,500 car to compete with Tata Motors’ Nano mode. A new 400,000 capacity plant is being built in Chakan, Maharashtra and the aim is to bring the car to the market in 2011.
Brazil - on course to be a superpower?
The Independent carried an article on the development of the Brazilian economy last Friday - here is the link - the BRIC analysis from Jim O’Neill and his team at Goldman Sachs continues to carry much weight and we tend perhaps to focus too much on China and India!
“The Brazilian stock market, already buoyed by the boom in prices for the country’s commodities and other exports, has surged to a record level this week on news that Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, has declared the country to be “investment grade”. Specifically, that is a stamp of approval on Brazilian government debt, but it is also the culmination of Brazil’s long slog away from financial crisis, hyper-inflation and democratic sclerosis. The country might finally be about to deliver on its promise as an economic power.”
World Bank Development Indicators 2008
The latest World Bank Development Report is now available here. As usual there is a veritable cornucopia of interesting and revealing evidence on the changing shape of the global economy. A lot of the data is available for free as are pdf versions of selected chapters from the main report.
Brazil’s widening wealth gap
Gillian Lacey-Solymar, Business correspondent for BBC Newsnight has a piece on tonight’s show about the rising inequality in Brazil as her economy continues to experience breakneck growth. Expect an excellent video clip to be available from the BBC web site immediately after the Newsnight programme has aired. Excellent for highlighting the links between growth and income and wealth distributio, especially with a tax system that appears to have regressive effects on the lowest income earners.
Revision: China and the UK Economy
Events and developments in one country inevitably have spill-over effects onto others. Your economics revision should consider some of these inter-relationships wherever possible. It will certainly help your analysis and evaluation. In this revision note we look at China
Revision note:
Revision_China_Effect.pdf
Asian Rice Crisis
The credit crunch is rivalled, arguably, by increasing food prices as a cause of economic (and human) concern in 2008.
This article from the BBC looks at some of the implications and you can watch/show videos on the rice crisis here.
read more...»Chart of the Day: China’s imports of primary goods
We often read about the size of the ‘China effect’ on the demand for and prices of primary commodities traded around the world. This over-simplification ignores the impact that other emerging market economies are having on the consumption of primary products – indeed a much greater proportion of global economic growth is being provided by the resource-intensive emerging economies. Added together, the emerging economies account for 23% of global GDP whereas the US accounts for around 29%.
Chart of the Day: $6m per minute - hot money flows into China
The Chinese stock market is down and property prices have been falling in many of the major cities and the Chinese trade surplus is starting to diminish. But short term capital flows are surging into the Chinese economy at the moment - according to research from HSBC Global Economics,
read more...»Currencies hit the Headlines
Two currency movements are in the news today. Firstly the pound has fallen to an eleven year low against the Euro with one Euro now worth eighty pence. The second currency hitting the headlines is the Chinese renminbi which has appreciated beyond Rmb7 to the US dollar for the first time since 1994.
