Blogs

We are now only into the second month of the war in Ukraine and, no doubt, much can still surprise us before the war is finally settled. However, it is already clear that the shocking events since 24^th February will change the political and economic structures that Southeast Asian countries operate in, thus creating a new world order.

As Finance Minister Lawrence Wong prepares to present his first budget on 18^th February, the economy is in much better shape than a year ago. Nevertheless, preparing the budget remains a demanding task. Judgements have to be made on revenues and the potential demands on spending in the midst of great uncertainty.

Financial markets have become highly volatile over growing geo-political concerns. Worries over the US Federal Reserve Bank’s monetary policy may have played a part in recent market corrections but the severe drubbing that European markets took compared to American ones suggests that the increased prospects of a war in Ukraine are a more important reason for the market gyrations

The emergence of the omicron variant of the covid-19 virus has dented the hopes of many that this would be the year when we would finally put the pandemic behind us. Infections are surging at an alarming rate in many countries, governments have had to re-impose some restrictions and economic activities have slowed

This past 12 months marked an improvement but only because 2020 was such a deplorable year. The global economy recovered but the extent and quality of that rebound has been disappointing. On the geo-political front, it was a similar story – nothing went spectacularly wrong but the improvements that many of us had hoped for did not materialise