Category: Global Economy
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Asia’s Export Engines Under Pressure: Semiconductors, Tariffs, and the Next Growth Reckoning
Asia’s post-pandemic recovery is entering a more fragile phase, shaped less by domestic cycles and more by the reordering of global technology, trade, and power. What appears today as a cyclical slowdown in exports and consumption is, in reality, a deeper structural transition—one where geopolitics, industrial policy, and technology controls…
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Asia Today: A Continent at an Inflection Point
Asia in 2025 stands at a decisive historical juncture. After four decades of export-led growth, demographic dividends, and deepening integration with global markets, the region now confronts a convergence of shocks that are structural rather than cyclical. US tariff pressures, fragmented global trade, slowing demand in advanced economies, persistent inflation…
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Industrial Policy Replaces Free-Market Orthodoxy
For nearly four decades, global economic thinking was dominated by the belief that open markets, minimal state intervention, and cost-based efficiency would naturally allocate capital to its most productive uses. Industrial policy was treated as an outdated relic—associated with protectionism, fiscal waste, and political favoritism. That intellectual consensus has now…
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When Policy Becomes the Market: The New Grammar of Global Business
For much of the post–Cold War era, global business operated under a comforting assumption: policy was the backdrop, markets were the stage. Governments set rules, firms optimized within them, and success was largely a function of efficiency, scale, and timing. That mental model is now obsolete. We are entering a…
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Merchandise Trade & Shipping: A World Moving Slower—but Thinking Deeper
Global merchandise trade and shipping are entering a phase that looks deceptively calm on the surface but is structurally far more complex beneath. Shipping volumes remain below their long-term trend, not because globalisation has ended, but because it is being re-engineered. After the post-pandemic surge and subsequent correction, firms are…
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The End of Easy Growth
Global business is moving into a structurally different phase—one where growth is slower, shocks are more frequent, and predictability is scarce. The post-Cold War era of liberalized trade, abundant liquidity, and volume-driven expansion is fading. In its place is an economy shaped by tighter monetary conditions, fragmented geopolitics, and policy…
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Manufacturing’s Two-Speed Reality: Why Global Factories Are Flat While AI Surges Ahead
The global manufacturing landscape in 2025 is marked by an unusual contradiction: factories across major economies remain subdued, while investment in technology, AI hardware, and critical infrastructure is booming. This divergence is not merely cyclical—it represents a structural realignment of industrial priorities that began after the 2008 financial crisis and…
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The US Economy in 2025: A Surge, a Slowdown, and a Strategic Crossroads
The United States entered late-2025 on a surprising note: GDP growth accelerated to 4.3% (annualized) in Q3, the strongest pace in two years and far above market expectations. This resurgence—impressive on the surface—comes after a volatile period marked by policy reversals, tariff redesigns, and recession anxieties. Historically, such late-cycle surges…
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