The Slowly Changing Global Economic Order

Throughout Asia, on the eve of the completion of ten years since the east asian currency cris, a number of people are reflecting what happened and are assessing the future posibilities . As things stand today, many developing countries have undergone an amazing economic development. Through carefully pursued policies some of them are reaping the benefits of having established a good, liberal economic order and becoming integrated in the world and the global division of labour. The endeavours of some governments and the willingness of their entrepreneurs to take risks ensured that they reap economic success.

On the long flight from Singapore to SFO over the weekend, began to chat with the co-passenger, a distinguished economist. He shared his views on what’s happening in the global economic scene – essentially encapsulating views from his institution’s recent research on patterns. We chatted on a number of things and coverged on a few themes:

A. The dominance of the west as economic super powers are clearly things of the past.
B. The truth is that many developing nations have squared off massive external debts that they hadaccumulated.
C. The foreign-exchange reserves of several emerging nations are far higher than they need to meet any contingencies. For some asian countries, the forex reserves account for over40% of GDP.
D. There was a time when hese funds used to be held as US Dollars. Those days are simply gone. The investment strategies of nations are mostly beginning to get driven by two things: better yield and meeting strategic objectives. For example, the energy deficient nations like China and India use these in far better directed ways.
E. As can only be expected the response to the new emerging world order by the rich western nations leave things to be desired. More energy goes there towards creating protection barriers and unfriendly laws.
F. The west coupled with myriad issues ranging from demogrpahics to meeting energy needs to maintaining lifestyle of their citizens need to focus on boosting competitiveness and focus on innovation and entrepreneurship – their traditional qualities are still their best bet for maintaning and enhancing prosperity.