South Asia Investor Review

Ever Given container ship that ran aground and blocked all shipping traffic through the Suez Canal, the busiest waterway in the world, has just been re-floated.  The mega cargo ship's captain and the entire crew are Indian, the owners and shipbuilders are Japanese, the operator is German, the insurance company is British, the charterer is Taiwanese and the cargo is Chinese, according to media reports. The ship was reported blown aground by strong winds.  Ever Given Stuck in Suez Canal. Source: Bloomberg The 200,000-ton, 1,312 ft-long, 175 ft-wide cargo ship got stuck in the Suez Canal last Tuesday. About 30% of global cargo ship traffic remained blocked with 50 ships added to the jam every day the vessel remained stuck, As of yesterday, there were $10 billion worth of goods with nowhere to go with more than 300 ships carrying products across multiple industries now stuck in the gridlock. This is a major incident that will undoubtedly be investigated to prevent its recurrence. Early

Sheikh Alam, a Muslim leader of Mamta Banerjee's Trinamool Congress Party, has recently been quoted in the Indian media as saying: "We  (Muslims)  are 30% and they (Hindus) are 70% They will come to power with the support of the 70%, they should be ashamed. If our Muslim population moves to one side then we can  create four new Pakistans . Where will 70% of the population go?"   Quaid-e-Azam's Demand For Pakistan:  TMC leader Sheikh Alam's words today are a reminder of the demand for Pakistan in 1940s. It arose from the majoritarian tyranny of the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress after 1937 elections in India.  Speaking in Lucknow  in October 1937,  Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah  said the following:  "The present leadership of the Congress, especially during the last ten years, has been responsible for alienating the Musalmans of lndia more and more, by pursuing a policy which is exclusively Hindu; and since they have formed the Governments in six

Pakistan's technology exports shot up by 69% in February 2021 from the same month last year. Tech exports soared 41% for the first 8 months (July 2020-February 2021) of the current fiscal year from the same period period last year, according data released by the State Bank of Pakistan.  Pakistan Tech Exports Trend. Source: Arif Habib Securities Technology services exports from Pakistan continued their momentum into February 2021, rocketing up 69% to $179 million, up from $106 million in February 2020. ICT exports for the first 8 months of the ongoing fiscal year 2020-2021 rose 41% to $1.3 billion, on track to reach or surpass the $2 billion mark this year.  In addition to jump in tech services exports, Pakistan is also seeing double-digit growth in exports of engineering goods , up 19.74% for the first 8 months of the current fiscal year.  Export of electric fans posted over 15% growth and other electrical machinery 17.16%. There is real hope for Pakistan to dramatically increase i

Amid the  COVID19 pandemic , Pakistan's World Happiness ranking has dropped from 66 (score 5.693) among 153 nations  last year  to 105 (score 4.934) among 149 nations ranked this year. Neighboring India is ranked 139 and Afghanistan is last at 149. Nepal is ranked 87, Bangladesh 101, Pakistan 105, Myanmar126 and Sri Lanka129. Finland retained the top spot for happiness and the United States ranks 19th.  Pakistan Happiness Index Trend 2013-2021 One of the key reasons for decline of happiness in Pakistan is that the country was forced to significantly  devalue its currency  as part of the  IMF bailout  it needed to deal with a severe balance-of-payments crisis. The rupee devaluation sparked inflation, particularly  food and energy inflation . Global food prices also soared by double digits amid the  coronavirus pandemic , according to Bloomberg News. Bloomberg Agriculture Subindex, a measure of key farm goods futures contracts, is up almost 20% since June. It may in part be driven by

"Putin is a killer", declared President Joseph R. Biden in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos  of  ABC News . This stands in sharp contrast to what former President Donald J. Trump said in a 2017 Super Bowl Sunday interview Fox News when host Bill O'Reilly  authoritatively declared Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s a killer.” Trump replied with the question: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?” President Biden with Prime Minister Modi Biden is declaring Putin a "killer" while at the same time embracing India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has killed thousands of Muslims. In fact, Modi was shunned by the United States and much of the civilized world for over a decade for his part in the  2002 Gujarat massacre  of Indian Muslims. His policies as prime minister indicate that he's not a changed man.  Biden needs to understand that  Modi's Hindutva  and America's Christian White Supremacists who  attacked the US Capitol  on Ja

Quest for sustainable fiber with antimicrobial properties has created a global market for hemp (بھنگ) that grows wild in Pakistan. The ongoing COVID19 pandemic and increasing climate concerns have given further impetus to this movement. Responding to shifting market preferences, major Pakistani denim makers Artistic Milliners and US Denim have now begun producing new denim fabrics blending cotton with  hemp .  Hemp Jeans At last year's Kingpin Show online, Karachi-based Artistic Milliners presented its Bio Vision 2.0 collection that is based on guidelines set by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign, featuring biodegradable fibers that provide optimal recovery, according to  Sourcing Journal . The mill’s circular focus is also displayed in its Circular Blue New collection, which is made of 100 percent recycled cotton and uses post-consumer, pre-consumer and industrial waste. Lahore-based US Denim’s latest collections also focus on sustainability and feature recycled and b

Until 2010, Bangladesh was a laggard in South Asia region. Its per capita income was about half of Pakistan's. Now Bangladesh's per capita gdp is higher than both India's and Pakistan's. What changed? The biggest change is Bangladeshi leader Shaikh Hasina's decision to stifle the unruly Opposition and the media to bring political and economic stability to the South Asian nation of 160 million people. It has eliminated a constant sense of crisis and assured investors and businesses of continuity of government policies. With development taking precedence over democracy, Shaikh Hasina followed the example of  Asian Tigers   by focusing on export-led economic growth of her country. She incentivized the export-oriented garment industry and invested in human development. Bangladesh now outperforms India and Pakistan in a whole range of socioeconomic indicators: exports, economic growth, infant mortality rate, primary school enrollment, fertility rate and life expectancy. 

In "Post-American World" published in 2011, CNN GPS host Fareed Zakaria described India as a "powerful package" and claimed that his country of birth has been "peaceful, stable, and prosperous". It all changed on March 7, 2021, when Zakaria finally spoke out the ugly truth about his native land. "A central thrust of the government's illiberalism relates to its efforts to promote Hindu nationalism, singling out India's Muslim minority", said Zakaria. In a rare moment of candor, he even came close to acknowledging India's military occupation of Kashmir when he said: "In 2020, Kashmir's (Freedom House)  score plummeted. Currently, it is rated as "not free," on par with dictatorships and police states".  Freedom House 2021 Democracy Map. Source: Freedom House While it was the first time that Zakaria used his global platform as CNN GPS host to criticize India, it seems that Prime Minister Modi's rule has been a

The recent shock defeat of  Dr. Hafeez Shaikh, Prime Minister Imran Khan's nominee for the Senate, has former President Asif Ali Zardari's fingerprints on it. The former president and current co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party orchestrated the buying of votes and arranged the hundreds of millions of rupees used for the purpose to ensure former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's surprise victory in the recent Senate Elections. Zardari has been widely known to be "in his elements" when it comes to "money transactions".  L to R: Khurshid Shah, Asif Ali Zaradri, Yusuf Raza Gilani What Mr. Zardari pulled off is a reminder of what he did for Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, his late wife who faced almost certain defeat in a no-confidence motion against her in November, 1989. In his recent book entitled " The Bhutto Dynasty ", veteran British journalist Owen Bennet  Jones offers several specific instances of how the Bhuttos used money for politic

Vietnam has attracted major manufacturing and export-oriented industries that have relocated from China as the US-China trade war heated up. This process further accelerated during the COVID19 pandemic in the year 2020. As a result, Vietnam is now labeled by many analysts as "The Newest Asian Tiger". Bangladesh, too, has attracted export-oriented garment manufacturing industries.  Can Pakistan follow Vietnam's and Bangladesh's examples? Pakistan was the original Asian Tiger back in the 1960s when other developing Asian nations sought to emulate its development model.   Vietnam's Rise: With rising manufacturing costs in China and the US-China trade war ,  many major manufacturers are relocating to other countries in Asia. This situation has helped Vietnam emerge as a hub of foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI flow into the country has averaged more than 6% of GDP, the highest of any emerging economy. The country’s recent economic data shows a rise of 18% in expo

The results of a test called "Supertest", developed by researchers from the US, China, Russia and India,, show that Indian engineering students perform very poorly relative to their  peers in other countries. Supertest is the first study to track the progress of students in computer science and electrical engineering over the course of their studies with regard to their abilities in physics, mathematics and critical thinking and compare the results among four countries.   Supertest was initiated by Stanford University, HSE University Moscow, the Educational Testing Service (ETS), and partner universities in China and India, according to Phys.org .  Here's an excerpt of the article in journal that explains the test: "More than 30,000 undergraduate students participated in the study. The researchers collected a sample of students from elite and large universities, roughly equal in number for each country. In Russia, the sample included students from six Project 5-100 u