South Asia Investor Review

The first US presidential debate of Elections 2020 on September 29 was a very chaotic affair. It was characterized by constant interruptions by President Donald J. Trump and exchange of unprecedented insults with Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden. Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor and moderator, found it impossible to bring order in spite of his best efforts. It resembled Pakistani Talk Shows with all the yelling, screaming, drama and insults. Trump attacked  India  twice during the debate. At one point, Biden said "Inshallah".  Trump  refused to denounce  white supremacists and questioned the integrity of the elections.  Trump also attacked Biden’s intelligence at several points during the contentious debate. Biden called Trump a "clown" and told him to "shut up" at one point.  Trump questioned India's coronavirus data while responding to Biden's accusation that his opponent has badly mishandled the pandemic. About 21 minutes into t...

Pakistan's digital gig economy has surged 69% during the COVID19 pandemic , putting the country among the world's top 4 hottest online freelancer markets, reports   Payoneer , a global payments platform company based in Silicon Valley, in its latest report. Payoneer attributes it to government programs such as Punjab government's e Rozgaar program that has been offering free online courses in digital freelancing. The sudden rush to learn skills online boosted the demand for instructors. The Pakistan government filled this demand by hiring alumni of programs like e Rozgaar who were successfully participating in the gig economy. Punjab government's e-rozgaar program logo After a brief dip in January 2020, the demand for freelancers took off in February and increased by double digits each month starting in March until June when it surged 47% at the time the data was compiled by Payoneer for its report.“ Likewise, this response is reflected in the revenue figures where fre...

Manufacturing in Pakistan lags behind Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka in terms of  manufacturing value added  per capita as well as per capita exports of manufactured products, according to  Competitive Industrial Performance Report 2020  released by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).  Pakistan's Competitive Industrial Performance. Source: UNIDO On the competitive Industrial Performance (CIP) Index, Pakistan ranks 82 among 152 countries, well behind India at 42,  Bangladesh  at 70 and Sri Lanka at 75. Only Maldives (144) and Nepal (135) rank lower than Pakistan. Bangladesh has built a very successful  garments manufacturing  and export business that rivals China's. The country is now focusing on building  mobile phones  and consumer electronics industry.   India's Competitive Industrial Performance. Source: UNIDO Only 1.3% of  Pakistan's manufacturing  is high-tech and 9% medium tech, bet...

The latest leaks of US FinCEN (Financial Crime Enforcement Network) files show that the United Kingdom (UK) is the biggest  global center for money laundering . An earlier report issued by the British Crime Agency put Pakistan among the world's top sources of money laundering in the United Kingdom. The latest FinCEN leaks represent just the tip of an iceberg. The leaked 2,100 FinCEN files covering $2 trillion worth of transactions that ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) and Buzzfeed reporters got their hands on represent just a small sliver of the roughly 12 million SARs FinCEN has received since 2011. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly raised the issue of the  West's inaction  in stopping the illicit flows of hard currencies from developing nations to the developed world. Money laundering and other financial crimes affect the economic roots of a nation like Pakistan and slow down its human and socioeconomic development. Fin...

"One hard truth that Indians have to contend with is that America has also had difficulty treating India with respect", writes former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani in his latest book "Has China Won?". "If America wants to develop a close long-term relationship with  India  over the long run, it needs to confront the deep roots of its relative lack of respect for India", adds Ambassador Mahbubani. It's not just Mahbubani who suspects the United States leadership does not respect India. Others, including former President Bill Clinton, current US President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CNN GPS host Fareed Zakaria have expressed similar sentiments.  Kishore Mahbubani Kishore Mahbubani: Kishore Mahbubani is a former top diplomat who served as the head of Singaporean mission at the United Nations. He was born in Singapore in 1948 to Hindu Sindhi parents who migrated from Pakistan to India in 1947, and then to Singapore ...

With  coronavirus spread contained , Pakistan economy is rebounding with V-shaped economic recovery.    Pakistanis have once again defied all foreign and domestic doomsayers, including media, activists and think tanks of all varieties.  The nation's monthly Quantum Index of Manufacturing (QIM) for July 2020 has returned to where it was a year ago in July 2019, according to data released by  Pakistan Bureau of Statistics .  Meanwhile, the number of daily new cases has declined from over 6,000 a day in June to around 500 a day now. There has also been dramatic reduction in hospital admissions and the need for intensive care. The LSMI output increased by 5.02% for July, 2020 compared to July, 2019 and 9.54% in June, 2020.  The recovery in manufacturing is quite broad, extending from cement production to fuel sales and growing demand for automobiles to home appliances, according to  Bloomberg News .  Pakistan has successfully overcome the ch...

Pakistan's  economy  has grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about  5% since the 1960s . While Pakistan's average 5% annual economic growth rate is faster than the global average, it falls significantly short of its peer group in Asia. The key reason is that, unlike Pakistan's, the East Asian nation's growth has been fueled by rapid rise in exports. History shows that Pakistan has run into balance of payments (BOP) crises whenever its growth has accelerated above 5%. These crises have forced Pakistan to seek  IMF bailouts 13 times  in its 73 year history. Pakistan's current account deficits would be a lot worse without  23X growth in remittances  from overseas Pakistanis since year 2000.  What Pakistan has experienced is BOP-constrained growth as explained in 1979 by Thirlwall Law, a law of economics named after British economist Anthony Philip Thirlwall.  Another reason why Pakistan has lagged its Asian peers in terms of econo...