Tag Archives: frontier markets

Investors should look at SAARC as a separate asset class

By Sourajit Aiyer

This article is a synopsis of my new book, Capital Market Integration in South Asia: Realizing the SAARC Opportunity. Here is a link to the publishers’ website and here is a link to it on Amazon, where you will be able to buy it when it is launched in November.

Lee Kuan Yew, credited for converting Singapore into an economic success, once described ASEAN as “Unpromising Start, Promising Future”. This phrase can also describe the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which has seen few successes as geopolitics slowed progress.

Continue reading →

China’s economy could be hit by three big problems

By Sourajit Aiyer

This article was originally published by Foreign Policy News USA.

Can the Chinese economic engine really be hit? It is undergoing a transformational change currently, from investment-driven to a consumption-driven one, but that would still enable it to run at a decent speed.

Here are three distinct themes that can severely hit the Chinese engine in the years to come:

Continue reading →

Deepening capital markets in frontier countries – Part 3

By Sourajit Aiyer

A version of this article was originally published in Financial Express, Bangladesh in December 2014.

The first part of this article looked at the areas of competitiveness that frontier countries can use as building blocks for their capital markets, while the second part investigated ways to invest and the best instruments to use.

This third, and final part looks at whether equities are the best asset class for investors frontier countries and what else is needed for the development of capital markets.

Continue reading →

Deepening capital markets in frontier countries – Part 2

By Sourajit Aiyer

A version of this article was originally published in Financial Express, Bangladesh in December 2014.

The first part of this article dealt with finding areas of competitiveness that frontier countries can use as building blocks for their capital markets.

In this second part, we will be looking at ways to invest and the best instruments to use.

Continue reading →

Deepening capital markets in frontier countries – Part 1

By Sourajit Aiyer

A version of this article was originally published in Financial Express, Bangladesh in December 2014.

Growth expectations in most frontier countries are improving, so investors, domestic as well as foreign, could well benefit from being able to tap into this growth.

What would be the first step that could help to translate this growth into increased capital market activity?

Continue reading →

Romania may have just become a huge investment opportunity

Romania is often dismissed by investors as too small, too corrupt or too complicated to bother with — sometimes all three. And yet, this little-understood country has, over time, delivered huge profits to those foreign investors who knew how to navigate the often complex issues that it is faced with.

A recent political phenomenon could present investors with new opportunities, this time for the longer term – if things play out right.

Continue reading →

A dozen direct investment opportunities in Bhutan

By: Sourajit Aiyer

What sector-specific micro opportunities for direct investment do the recent changes in Bhutan’s economy spell? Following are a dozen that came to my mind based on the observations made during my recent trip there.

Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Asia’s final frontier in investment: Bhutan

By: Sourajit Aiyer

Frontier markets have gotten remarkable attention in recent months. As an analyst is said to have summarised it during an investor roadshow in Nairobi: everyone and their dog seems to know something about frontier markets.

Improving governance, positive demographics and reforms initiation at one side, the large population is a major rationale to look at economies like Vietnam, Argentina, Kenya, Colombia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Romania, Pakistan or even Myanmar.

But judging strictly on the population criterion, there would hardly seem a validation to think of countries like Bhutan. After all, it has a population of only around 750,000 and does not figure on the list of typical frontier markets (hence I have used the term ‘final frontier’).

Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2