The outsourcing market in India has been thriving for years now and most of the entrepreneurs of some of the biggest Indian startups like Ola and Flipkart happen to be ex-employees of the US tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon. But the plight of startups in India may not be as optimistic as the ambitious Startup India Movement.
For long, geopolitics seemed to have started playing an important role in deciding the destiny of global financial markets. 2015 has seen contrasting developments, where nearly every market affected the other, irrespective of how much contribution one made to the other’s GDP. The reason could be that globally financial markets remain highly interconnected and if not through investments then through trade, the influence remained inevitable. This article highlights four important economies that could make a difference to global financial markets.
Greece has been struggling hard to meet the requirements needed to be a member in the Eurozone. Moreover, following the 2008 financial crisis in the US, Greece’s economy got smaller by 25% since 2009. Germany, France, Italy and Spain are the most important economies accounting for most of the Union’s GDP.
By devaluing its own currency, China has tried to address its issues due to financial distress. Not many have taken this surprise move by China in good spirits. While China might be trying to fix its own domestic growth, it could trigger currency wars amongst nations that are trying to compete with each other in international trade.
The changing relations of China and Russia are also not based purely through partnerships but also through their support in each another’s projects. Russia has been supporting China’s ambitious infrastructural projects like the Silk Road project and the Eurasian integration project, which connects China with Europe via Russia.
China’s leaders now aim to transform China into one of the world’s leading industrial powers by 2045 and for this, a new business model will be designed. By doing this, it aims to reduce and eventually overcome the country’s dependence on cheap manufacturing and instead focus on advanced industrial goods for markets. Not only this, China has for long been building knowledge-based economy, driven purely by innovation and domestic consumption. But its real estate sector still consists of ghost towns and dozens of unleased commercial spaces.
The whole purpose of BRICS New Development Bank is to be self sufficient and rely less on western economies. The world’s reserves has shrunk from 90% (2004) of dollar denominated securities to 60% in 2014. But, the growing tension individually in the member countries could easily defeat the purpose for which it was originally formed. Some debate that this small initiative (formation of BRICS) could be a big challenge for the advanced economies.
The creation of AIIB, China has opened its closed doors to many countries. In committing to contribute up to 50% of the AIIB capital, it will be taking the lead in assisting the development of other Asian countries. There will be a lot of rising challenges in the development of the bank but this could be a great opportunity for China to prove itself as a global leader.
The Eurozone comprises of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. Established in 1999, these countries have adopted a common currency called the ‘Euro’. ‘Euro’ itself was introduced as a single currency no later than 2002. By sharing a common currency, the countries follow common economic and fiscal policies. Monetary policy decisions are taken by the independent European Central Bank , also known as the ECB. Entry to join the eurozone is controlled by the so-called Eurogroup.
Greece’s bailout extension expires in May this year and its inclination towards the members of BRICS seems inevitable. For long, Greece’s economy has been bringing troubling news to the Eurozone. The EU members have time and again tried their best to keep Greece in the common currency zone but bailouts and downgrading has got the worse out of Greece. However, the debt crisis in Greece seems to only deepen and has taken a different turn with some new developments in the Greece’s strategy – mostly captured in the statements of Greek Defense minister, Panos Kammenos.
The US dollar has been on the rise every day setting high records. With the upward pressure on dollar, stronger dollar could tighten financial conditions across the growth. Further the rising dollar could be offsetting the benefit of low cost oil. Over the past six months, the trade-weighted dollar has risen 25% and faster than anytime the last 40 years. US dollar is a global unit of account in debt contracts and that could be a cause of slow down in the rest of the world. Not only that, if the dollar continues to increase, inflation and US economic could weaken.
