Many top executives who came to Davos were boarding planes to come to Yangon as opposed to London or New York
“Come my friends, Tis not too late to seek a newer world”. This line from Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” recited to me by a banker at the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) last week rather aptly captured the changing post crisis mood among the world’s leading capitalists. More…
Reposted from the Financial Times. Click here to read
Since the civil war ended in 2009, Sri Lanka has emerged as one of Asia’s fastest growing economies
By John Enos
Since Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war against the Tamil Tigers came to an end in 2009, the South Asian nation of 20 million has experienced impressive growth due to a rise in tourism and its strategic position along one of the busiest international shipping lanes in the world. The US $64 billion economy is propelled by tourism, remittances, tea, textiles, and agriculture. Sri Lanka’s GDP, which grew at 8% in 2010 and 8.3% in 2011, slowed down to 6.5% in 2012 due to the country’s balance of payments predicament and the sluggish performance of the global economy. However, 7.5% growth is projected in 2013 and last year’s contraction will be ameliorated as tourist arrivals surge, large-scale infrastructure and port projects near completion, and Western demand for Sri Lanka’s exports strengthens. Matching the country’s solid GDP growth are its improvements in corporate governance. Sri Lanka was ranked as the second most improved country in the world in ease of doing business in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2013 report, the first time in seven years that a South Asian economy gained such an accolade.
This article is an excerpt from Leopard Asia Frontier Fund’s upcoming January 2013 newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here. More…
Reposted from Investors Chronicle
Investible assets come in all shapes and sizes but for Sam Vecht, manager of BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust (BRFI), basic investment principles remain the same. He may invest in some of the racier and more exotic areas of equity markets, but for him one of the central facets of investing is a basic metric: valuation. More…
Reposted from ETF Trends
By Tom Lydon
Frontier markets are economies that are in the beginning stages of capital market growth. Focused exchange traded funds give investors exposure to the growth spurt as the economies begin industrializing.
“Frontier funds’ 24 percent average return last year compares with 14 percent for U.S. funds, 16 percent in both Japan and emerging markets, and 17 percent in Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg,” Michael Patterson wrote for Bloomberg. More…
The three main Asian economic powers, China, Japan and Korea, were the largest investors in Cambodia
South Korea replaced the UK as the largest investor in Cambodia last year, with about $287 million injected, 12.5 per cent of the total foreign direct investment, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). More…
“We anticipate that there will be more than 700 new factories in 2015 that will employ more than 100,000 people”
The garment industry has been growing rapidly in the past two years on increased orders from Japan and South Korea, a spokesperson for the key industry body said last week. More…
Frontier markets offer a huge pool of natural resources for investors to tap in to, but political and geographical uncertainty add plenty of risk to the potential reward
This month’s hostage crisis in Algeria made headlines around the world. The terrorist attack on the natural gas facility is another reminder of the security issues at many oil and gas sites.
Social and political unrest is also being seen in neighbouring Mali and the ongoing Arab Spring has seen a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests that have forced rulers from power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
Despite the unrest, it is impossible to ignore the natural resources such as oil, gas and coal that make these countries attractive to investors who are happy to take higher levels of risk. More…
Reposted from Seeking Alpha
By Jon Springer
Ralph Keitel works as Principal Investment Officer for the International Finance Corporation [IFC] of the World Bank Group, which concentrates on the private sector. I had the opportunity to meet Ralph at the Syneidesis Group conference in early December 2012 and listen to him present about the IFC’s case for investing in Emerging (and Frontier) markets. The World Bank’s Antoine van Agtamel is credited with coining “Emerging Markets” in the 1980s while the IFC’s Farida Khambata is credited with coining the term “Frontier Markets” (as a subset of Emerging Markets) in the early 1990s. More…
