Opinion

  Dmitry Filippov SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 6 was met with positive reactions from both countries and gave grounds for cautious optimism regarding going forward with the peace treaty negotiations and making progress on the Northern Territories dispute. As I wrote of Abe’s visit: [T]he …

WASHINGTON The robots are coming — but not in numbers that would imperil most Americans’ jobs. Few subjects have inspired as much hype as robots. Consider some sample headlines: “Robots and Computers Could Take Half Our Jobs within the Next 20 years,” “Robots Could Put Humans Out of Work by 2045,” “Why the Highest-Paid Doctors Are the Most Vulnerable to …

  China, which has been a top business hub over the last two decades, is now experiencing slow growth amid increasing hostile business environment and lack of political will to accelerate structural reforms, triggering pessimism among European companies. Fifty-six per cent of European firms polled by the European Chamber of Commerce in China said they are finding it more difficult …

  Galbaatar Lkhagvasuren SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Mongolia has declared in its National Security Concept that it will develop friendly-neighbor relations and wide-ranging cooperation with the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. Yet individuals and other groups both in China and Russia have attempted cyber attacks on Mongolia numerous times, most of which have been reported to the …

Of all the topics sure to be come up in Sino-U.S. economic talks this week — from the problem of excess capacity to currency controls — the health of China’s financial sector will no doubt feature high on the list. Especially worrying are the multiplying links between the country’s commercial and “shadow” banks — the name given to a broad …

  Nobody expected the conservative Swiss to approve the idea of a hefty monthly payout to everyone in the country without exception. The proposal for a universal basic income (UBI) — a monthly payout of 2,500 francs ($2,560) — was rejected by 77 percent of Swiss voters in Sunday’s referendum, just as their government recommended. That’s a shame, because the …

  Mohamed A. El-Erian The very sharp drop in yields on U.S. Treasuries on Friday suggests that the fixed-income markets have interpreted the last week’s disappointing jobs report as an indication that the economy is facing diminishing demand momentum. As a result, traders significantly lowered their expectations of an interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve this summer, which also drove …

When President Barack Obama came into office, the fact that Russia sold the U.S. the rocket engines it needed for launches was a feature of U.S. foreign policy, not a bug. Obama was trying to reset the U.S. relationship with Moscow, and that meant finding areas where the two former Cold War rivals could cooperate. If the U.S. would rely …

  WASHINGTON Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric (2015 revenues: $117 billion), gave an interesting speech the other day that illuminates some pressing questions about the future of globalization. This involves politics as much as economics. It should be no surprise that the three remaining major presidential candidates (Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump) are no fans of …

  As the vote to Remain or Leave the EU approaches, both sides are stepping up their campaigns, with the Remain campaign focusing on the economic dangers of Brexit, while the Leave campaign is painting a scary scenario of an uncontrolled immigration if the UK stays in the EU. Amid the feverish atmosphere, the Remain campaign received a major boost …