Asia

The Internaional Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook, issued on April 16, projected China’s economic growth rate at 4.6% and 4.1% for, respectively, 2024 and 2025. In 2023, after China’s economic reopening with the end of the ‘zero-COVID’ policy, the rate was 5.2%, above the official target of 5% (Figure 1). For 2024, the official target has been set at 5% again. Notwithstanding the challenges we discuss here, China’s macroeconomic performance in the first quarter of 2024 has been ...

The destruction of a vibrant and historic nation, sprinkled with color and culture, turned into a footnote of geopolitics. The more than 377,000 war victims disappeared from global headlines. The official fighting ended in Yemen on March 29, 2022. A ceasefire was declared by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and the rebellious Houthis. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, praised “the wave of reconciliation” that swept across the region. The main foreign supporter of Yemen’s Houthi—Iran— ...

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En octobre 2023, la Chine a organisé le 3ème forum de l'Initiative « Ceinture et Route ». Le choix de la date n’était pas anodin, étant donné qu’elle coïncidait avec la célébration du 10ème anniversaire de l'Initiative. Une initiative aux multiples composantes L’Initiative « Ceinture et Route », également connue sous l’acronyme BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), a été initialement conçue pour permettre à la Chine de renforcer ses liens commerciaux avec les Etats partenaires de son I ...

La pandémie de la Covid-19 était venue contribuer au ralentissement de la cadence des investissements chinois dans le cadre de l’Initiative Ceinture et Route « Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ». Entamée dès 2016, cette tendance à la baisse a été accentuée par les tensions géopolitiques et les problèmes internes qui ont affecté l'économie chinoise. Nonobstant ces contre-temps, la Chine a atteint l’un de ses plus grands objectifs : étendre son influence à travers le monde. À l’occasion ...

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by Xi Jinping, passed its tenth anniversary in 2023. It has entered a third phase. The initiative added a label to China’s financing and construction of infrastructure abroad, which had already totaled more than $400 billion in the previous 10 years. In addition to the use of investment projects as part of Chinese ‘soft power’, the BRI has served to increase levels of usage of the country’s excess installed capacity. China’s economic re ...

The surprising victory of Javier Milei, the unconventional ‘anarcho-capitalist’ candidate, in the August primaries ahead of Argentina’s October 2023 general election, can be largely credited to his commitment to dollarize the Argentine economy, a move perceived as the ultimate solution to bring an end to the nation's economic turmoil. The potential shift from the local currency to the dollar has sparked concerns about Argentina's bilateral currency swap line with China. This swap l ...

In recent years, Iran has witnessed high levels of societal unrest, which has roots extending deep into the country’s rich history. Anti-regime protests notably spurred by tragic events such as the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, have exposed the dual nature of Iran—the resilience of its young people and the severe crackdown put in place by its regime. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian, was apprehended by Tehran's "morality police" on 13 September 2022, al ...

The G20, since its emergence in 1999, has played a crucial role in maneuvering the economy, envisaging a new global financial architecture, and steering clear of the roadblocks hindering economic development. Also known as a ‘multilateral economic caucus’, the G20 has served as a platform for both developed and emerging economies to engage in constructive dialogue. Having as a theme Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam or ‘One Earth— One Family—One Future’, India has assumed the leadership of the ...

Kim Ju-ae, supposed daughter of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was introduced by her father for the first time to the world and 26.1 million citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on November 19, 2022. Her first public appearance was unusual: at the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) costing up to $10 million (Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2022). Unlike a DPRK spy satellite launched on May 30, 2023, which broke up in midair before reach ...

At the August 22-24 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa said they wanted to use more of their national currencies for cross-border payments, which are currently dominated by the U.S. dollar and other global convertible currencies. Like China and the other BRICS, several other countries have also sought to develop alternative external payment mechanisms. Pairs of countries have agreed to settle commercial and financial transactio ...

China is the largest developing country. Africa is the continent with the largest number of developing countries. The China-Africa economic relationship has developed rapidly over the last two decades. China has increased its investment in Africa over the last four decades. Flows surged from $75 million (2003) to $5 billion (2021). This has had both positive and negative impacts on Africa. Infrastructure improvement, job creation, and overall economic growth can be listed as positiv ...

This paper aims to investigate the impact of an inflation targeting framework adoption by the central bank, on the reduction of public debt ratios in emerging countries, through the potential discipline-enhancing effect of inflation targeting on the conduct of fiscal policy in general. The impact evaluation method used is the Propensity Score Matching (PSM), which allows the evaluation of the treatment effect of inflation targeting on fiscal discipline, in terms of public debt reduc ...

La première bipolarisation a appartenu au XX° siècle et opposé États-Unis et URSS. Avec la guerre froide, elle était l'expression de la rivalité entre deux systèmes antagonistes. La seconde est née de la montée de la Chine populaire qui est entrée en compétition avec les États-Unis. Une compétition au départ économique et technologique, devenue aussi, au fil du temps, culturelle et stratégique, dans un monde interdépendant et digitalisé, mais également segmenté, complexe et incertai ...

This policy paper examines India’s growing engagement in North Africa, focusing on five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Despite lacking a distinct regional policy for North Africa, India has amplified its bilateral engagement with these countries, underpinned by a steadfast commitment to the principle of South-South cooperation. Through its strategic moves in North Africa, India has established a powerful southern-west axis for its foreign policy that stretch ...

L’Afrique est plurielle, comme le sont les investissements chinois sur son continent. Cette étude montre que, contrairement à ce que l’on mettait en avant durant la décennie 2010, ces investissements ne se limitent pas à l’exploitation du sous-sol africain. Les opérateurs chinois, privilégiant le long terme, se montrent le plus souvent patients et discrets, ne ciblant pas les seuls investissements miniers. Concernant les secteurs principalement bénéficiaires de ces investissements, ...

The big menacing balloon, about 60 meters in height and an estimated couple thousand pounds, was not carrying extraterrestrials or some exquisite new covid viruses from Wahun, China. A spying monster, as Washington's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken insisted, deployed by Beijing to "attempt to surveil very sensitive military sites" (CNN, February 19, 2023). The balloon, large as roughly three buses, went over several military installations," in some cases loitering", claimed Bli ...

Background The African Union in 2018 agreed to implement the world’s second-largest free-trade area measured by number of countries, people, and geographical size, with the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). This agreement will ultimately lead to a continent-wide free trade area consisting of 54 countries with 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion[1]. This equates to about 19%-20% of the GDP of the European Union and China, which are ...

China’s rate of economic growth has slowed. Chinese GDP ended 2022 up 3%, but this was the lowest growth rate in the last 40 years, except for 2020, the first year of the pandemic. In addition to problems in its real-estate sector, China’s severe ‘COVID zero’ confinement policy is one of the causes. The post-‘COVID zero’ reopening of the Chinese economy has improved its growth outlook. In the International Monetary Fund’s annual report on China, published in early February 2023, 5. ...

The volatility in energy markets since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019/2020 has continued, with unprecedented uncertainty about global energy supply developing over the course of 2022 in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, against a backdrop of weakening macroeconomic conditions and high inflation. While some perceived this as a potential setback for the energy transition, others saw it as an opportunity to move away from fossil fuels and accelerate the developme ...

Les fluctuations que connaissent les marchés de l'énergie depuis le début de la pandémie de la Covid-19 en 2019/2020 se sont prolongées, avec une incertitude sans précédent, sur l'approvisionnement énergétique mondial, qui s'est développée au cours de 2022 à la suite de l'invasion de l'Ukraine par la Russie, dans un contexte d'affaiblissement de la macroéconomie et d'inflation élevée. Alors que certains voyaient en ce contexte un risque de ralentissement de la transition énergétique ...

L’objectif de ce papier est d’essayer d’examiner si l’implémentation du cadre de ciblage de l’inflation par la banque centrale, permet une réduction de la dette publique dans les pays émergents, à travers l'effet disciplinant du ciblage sur la conduite de la politique budgétaire en général. Pour ce faire, la méthode d’évaluation d’impact utilisée est l’appariement par score de propension ou Propensity Score Matching (PSM), qui permet l’évaluation de l’effet de traitement ...

The current bleak outlook for the world economy, with a likely recession in major economies, high inflation, rising interest rates, and slow productivity growth, will adversely emerging market and developing countries (EMDE) over the next few years. Unfortunately, these countries emerged from COVID-19 with less fiscal space and rising debt service payments. Policies to insulate the domestic economy from these external shocks will present policymakers with difficult choices among exc ...

Protests are a reoccurring reality in this troubled nation, located in one of the world's most essential and dangerous strategic regions. Tires are often burning, and women dance in the streets, clapping their hands in defying mode. Shots are fired, and at times live ammunition is used by the Basij, black-clad paramilitary units, mainly recruited in rural regions and symbolizing the rural/urban divide in the theocracy of 86 million people. The stormtroopers of the repressive Iranian ...

Les responsables des États du Maghreb aimaient donner en exemple l’expérience de la Corée du Sud : ils semblaient signifier que grâce à ses périodes autoritaires elle a pu accéder au développement économique, voire à la puissance économique et, du coup, à la démocratie. La Corée du Sud a développé sa présence économique mais aussi politique et culturelle dans les pays de la région maghrébine à partir de plusieurs entrées : les relations avec l’ensemble de la re ...