Macro: Smartkarma Webinar | ASEAN Rebound: Southeast Asia’s New Opportunity and more

For our next Webinar, we are delighted to welcome back Insight Provider Manu Bhaskaran. In the aftermath of the COVID crisis, Southeast Asia is back on a path to growth. As a keen, long-time observer of the region, Manu lays out the economic factors and key trends breeding new opportunities in ASEAN, which foreign investors need to know about.

The webinar will be hosted on Wednesday, 9 March 2022, 17:00 SGT/HKT.

Manu Bhaskaran is a leading Asia economist based in Singapore, with more than 30 years of experience in studying economic, political, and security issues that shape the business environment in Asia. He coordinates the Asian business of Washington DC-based strategic advisory firm, Centennial Group, directing its Asian economic research practice, which provides in-depth analysis of macro trends in Asia. He works extensively with investment institutions, government agencies, and corporations, and regularly presents his views on the economic, political, and business environment in Asia at business conferences and in-house briefings. He is a member of the Regional Advisory Group for Asia and the Pacific of the International Monetary Fund. 

• The quick rise in Oil now shows a market that is running out of steam in the short term and is at risk of correcting down
• This is unlikely to change the underlying trend of higher prices but instead create an opportunity down the line to establish longs
• Similarly, the rise in yields is likely to see a pullback before higher yields later. The trade idea at the end of related to this.

• There has been a worrisome sign brewing in the Korean bond market in the past several months which is the Bank of Korea (BOK) continuing to buy Korean government bonds.
• Three weeks after the BOK raised interest rates on 14 January, the BOK purchased 2 trillion won worth of additional Korean government bonds in early February. 
• The BOK buying more Korean government bonds is like an owl devouring a rat without vomiting the bones. 

• In less than a month, development goals and government priorities for the year will be announced at the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC)
• Almost all provincial-level governments lowered their GDP growth targets this year
• As China’s once breakneck growth slows, stabilizing the economy has become national policymakers’ top priority