Asia’s economic growth and development have been unparalleled over the past 75 years. Poverty has declined continuously and more rapidly than at any time in recorded history, and significant welfare gains have been achieved. These achievements have been driven by Asia’s growing participation in international trade and global value chains, which underpin the globalization process. More broadly, globalization refers to the integration of economies that has been achieved through growing levels of international trade, finance, and investment, and through the mounting exchanges of people, ideas, and data.
The latest Asia Business Council survey shows firms are worried about politics increasingly encroaching on business and driving potential decoupling. Energy is the top concern amid high prices and the continuing fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In 2021, resilience is undoubtedly top-of-mind for business leaders as they face the COVID-19 pandemic and threat of climate change amidst a precarious geopolitical environment. While corporate resilience is the capacity of an individual company to transform nimbly, rebound quickly, and prepare effectively for dramatically changed circumstances, collective resilience refers to the capacity of multiple …
Blunting the impact of climate change is our time’s greatest challenge. The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate pledged to keep the rise in global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The overall Paris pledge is the sum of individual country pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), to drive decarbonization. But, …
Against a backdrop of electricity shortages in China’s most important provincial economy, a report of a possible radiological leak from China’s Taishan nuclear reactor is raising questions about safety and transparency of information.
Public health and climate change are both great challenges for Asia. Together they create a nexus of concern that could become the next big crisis for the region. While rapid economic development has pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty and people’s health and lives are much improved, Asia is dealing with an emerging set …
Typhoons, terrorism, the threat of war, tsunamis, earthquakes, and epidemic disease. These are but a few of the challenges Asian companies have confronted since the century began. Risk is not new. What’s new is that ever-more-complex business models make companies vulnerable to risk as never before. What’s new, too, is that we are running up …
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has begun to transform businesses, jobs, and economies. Machines are increasingly able to perform tasks that only humans could do previously—often more quickly and accurately, too. Significantly, they are also starting to generate results or insights by themselves when given access to data, without being explicitly programmed. AI presents an enormous opportunity—those …
How prepared is Asia for pandemic and epidemic diseases? While efforts by national governments and international organizations to prevent and control pandemics in the region have been instrumental in mitigating disaster in the short-term, they have also exposed more systemic weaknesses that call into question Asia’s preparedness for future outbreaks. Future preparedness is important, because …
The food and agriculture sector is a key part of Asia’s regional economy. Asian economies are among the world’s leading producers, consumers, exporters and importers of major agricultural commodities, most notably rice, but also other grains, oilseed, and increasingly meat. Asia is also home to two-thirds of the world’s poor, or almost 2 billion people, …
