It seems Chinese urban planners have read this year’s BI Consulting report our annual assessment of business risk for the year ahead and beyond.
Our article on the growth of Megacities in December heralded the announcement last week that nine cities in Southern China – including Guangzhou and Shenzhen – are to be merged to form one enormous metropolis. The new city will house 42 million people and encompass one tenth of China’s economic output. [Read more…]
As I write this in Dubai, it seems that Hosni Mubarak’s days as President of Egypt are numbered. It reminds us of the transitory nature of power – although in Mubarak’s case the transit took some thirty years – and he hasn’t gone yet. But regimes that one day can seem to be anchor points on the political landscape, around which governments shape foreign policy and businesses structure their approach to key markets, can the next day be in a state of acute flux.
We seem surprised by sudden change. World leaders caught off guard respond with fancy political footwork and carefully coded statements as they rapidly recalibrate alliances. Markets get the jitters. [Read more…]
The departure for exile in Saudi Arabia of President Ben Ali of Tunisia seems to bear out the axiom that all political careers end in failure. Leaving the stage when the audience is asking you to stay is infinitely preferable to an ignominious scuttle to the airport. The longer you leave it – and the more you are seen to dither – the odds of a happy retirement decrease.
Quitting while you are ahead was as true for Roman emperors as it is today for North African republican “monarchs” or European prime ministers. But if the political ecology is ancient, the circumstances surrounding the “Jasmine Revolution” are very modern. [Read more…]
The British government has just decided to review the UK Bribery Act weeks before it was due to come into force. There has been much talk of concerted lobbying by British companies who worry that the tough provisions of the new act will make compliance more onerous than other anti-corruption legislation around the world.
We should not be surprised that getting this new law over the starting line is proving tricky. [Read more…]
Approaching Basra from the air, you are left with two distinct impressions. The first is beige. As far as the eye can see, the landscape is remorseless beige, broken only by the distant flares of gas out in the oil fields and the resulting plumes of black smoke. The second is the almost unnatural flatness of the landscape, like a vast beige billiard table stretching towards Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
This was my first visit to Basra since 2004. The change is remarkable. Back then the region was on the edge of descending into a prolonged period of insurgency and violence that prevented any meaningful rebuilding of the economy. This time the mood is different. The security situation remains challenging. But the overall environment is much more permissive and the remarkable activity underway in the oil fields is set to transform Basra, Iraq and the region. [Read more…]