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.

The 2021 edition of our yearly ‘Asian Business Outlook Survey’ (ABOS) delivered a series of interesting results pointing towards the continued importance of the region to drive global growth. Despite ongoing risks, the great majority of respondents told us that they are confident about the business outlook in Asia over the next five years

The ECN Regional Leaders Programme is a professional education solution to assist you with succession planning for your company’s future growth.

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Problems relating to cash flow, liquidity and slow payments are the number one risk for businesses in the Middle East and North Africa.