At one of our recent CxO lunches we discussed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and what its implementation will mean for businesses operating in the region. Opinions were quite divided. Some noted that RCEP does not really achieve a lot and is more of a geopolitical win for China, while others praised the positive impact it will have in deepening regional value chains and cutting administrative costs.

One of the biggest risks we see for the recovery of the global economy is the slow pace of vaccine distribution. The longer it takes to control the pandemic and inoculate the population across all countries, the more likely it is for new and stronger variants of the virus to emerge. This could render the current vaccines efforts ineffective and lead to additional restrictive measures, more state support and higher indebtedness.

I have been conducting some research on demographics, and here is a chart that should raise concerns among, and even scare, Chinese policymakers due to its implications for the country’s development process.

China’s efforts to advance environmental sustainability have been making the headlines owing to President Xi Jinping’s pledge for carbon emissions to peak by 2030, and carbon neutrality to be achieved by 2060.

With recent news that China became the largest recipient of FDI in 2020, I wanted to share my thinking about the ‘dual-circulation’ strategy (DCS), which has continued making the headlines due to its potential implications in a world of fractured supply chains and rising geopolitical risk. Since being announced in May 2020

Ten years ago, at his State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama famously called on Congress to support “our generation’s Sputnik moment” by investing in research and development, particularly in breakthrough technologies. America has since spent the decade with this audacious goal largely overshadowed by other pressing national priorities.

On 28 April, ECN South-east Asia held an event to address the challenges to supply chains, considering how we can improve agility and resilience in the face of obstacles and continuous volatility. The change factors affecting supply chains today existed long before the pandemic hit, and will be with us into the future.

On 25 March we held our flagship Regional Strategic Forecast event, where our Global Chief Economist, Simon Baptist, delivered a presentation on the key economic and geopolitical trends impacting the region and what these mean for business. Below I share the key takeaways I got from the presentation for your convenience.

While we predicted that there would not be a reset in US-China relations under President Biden and that trade tensions and tech rivalry were here to stay, we did anticipate a return to stability and predictability. In some senses, we have seen that – no longer is China policy determined by midnight tweets.