Opinion

For investors seeking reasons to worry about banks, here’s another: They’ve lent a lot of money in currencies that borrowers will have a hard time paying back. The phenomenon illustrates how capital flows work in a financially integrated world — and how they can contribute to booms and busts. As the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank held ...

India, it seems, is replacing China as Asia’s star economy. While China’s growth has slipped below 7 percent, new reports suggest that India’s economy will expand by 7.6 percent in the fiscal year ending in March. Leaving aside the accuracy of these figures, the preoccupation with growth rates has obscured an equally important trend: China is blowing India away in ...

With the price of oil at record lows, the small Southeast Asian nation of Brunei is quickly becoming the first oil-rich country to fall victim to an economic reliance on the energy industry. The hydrocarbon-dependent sultanate of 420,000 people now stands on the precipice of an economic calamity. At the apex of its 2008-2015 financial crisis, Greece’s budget deficit was ...

Kyrgyzstan completed its accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in August 2015, eight months after the union’s official launch and three months after Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev signed the agreements with the leaders of the other member states–Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia–in Moscow. But as Oleg Pankratov, the deputy prime minister, said at a press conference this week, the ...

For decades after 1949, Hong Kong—also known as the “Pearl of the Orient”—was the envy of mainland Chinese because of its prosperity and freedom. It was naturally the top destination for hundreds of thousands of mainlanders who tried to flee from famine or political chaos. Hong Kong also used to evoke feelings of poignancy among mainlanders, because it was under ...

The Munich Security Conference is an annual catalog of horrors. But the most ominous discussion last weekend wasn’t about IS terrorism but a new generation of weapons — such as killer robots and malignly programmed “smart” appliances that could be deployed in a future conflict. Behind the main events at the annual discussion of foreign and defense policy here was ...

To sustain the competitive edge, the banking sector in the UAE has to digitize to keep pace with international standards, and retain customer base as well as reach out to young customers through the social media networking. Corporate banks that will lag behind the digitization process could risk drop of profits, and hence lose qualified staff compared to other competitors ...

Barron’s cover story this weekend asked, “Trump and Sanders: Are They Killing the Stock Market?” Noting the correlation between the rise of so-called outsiders and movement in the equities markets, the business weekly said, “US stocks have fallen sharply since Trump and Sanders began rising in popularity in the polls. It could be more than coincidence.” The story hits upon ...

China is going to set up its first air squadron in Antarctica in 2016, China Daily reports, citing the State Oceanic Administration. The squadron will support China’s ongoing scientific explorations in the Antarctic. As China Daily noted, China currently has 277 researchers in Antarctica, working out of four research stations. The SOA didn’t provide details about the squadron, other than ...

When Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the blueprint for the enormous $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project last year, Pakistan was understandably pleased. The Pakistani government considers the project a game changer for its fragile economic structure. This exhilaration partly stems from the country’s wobbly economic performance in recent years, which has seen it fall short of GDP and ...