Kim Iskyan

Central and Eastern European banks work to regain their footing after a challenging year.

China's population is falling while India's is rising and this change has vast implications for the global economy.

Foxconn’s shift toward US production is also in line with the US government’s broader efforts to develop a supply chain that is more resilient and less reliant on other markets. 

Sri Lanka’s perfect storm of economic disaster started with the Covid-19 pandemic and years of government nepotism, corruption, and economic mismanagement ultimately led to a $50 billion default on foreign loans.

Regional banks spur growth in new product offerings.

Adapt—or risk being left behind.

While it took just 11 years for the latest billion people to be added to the Earth’s population, population growth is slowing down.

The Kremlin is moving in on the holdings of foreign energy companies as the war in Ukraine drags on.

The equity capital markets were hit the hardest, particularly in the US.

In a world of uncertainty, banks look to the future.

Russia's biggest companies and the Russian government may soon be unable to make payments on their debt obligations.

Upward of 20 companies went public on South Korea’s main market last year, raising around $14 billion—nearly double the previous record, set in 2010.

Sarah Raskin’s background, credentials and experience reflect her policy bias toward heavier regulation of the financial sector. 

After a year of challenges for the global FX market, the pace of change hasn’t slowed.

BBVA moves in as foreign investors flee.

Global IPO markets were hot in 2021 and the prospects for 2022 look similarly stronger.

The culprits behind these and dozens of other production cuts by automakers around the world are supply chain constraints and shortages of semiconductor chips.

Nearly a dozen Russian companies have hit the public markets since early 2020, with at least four more expected to start trading publicly before the end of the year. 

Companies look to make up for time lost to Covid-19.

Russia’s conservative economic approach offers opportunities for the attentive investor.

The Grab IPO will mark a milestone for the Southeast Asian tech sector, which is forecast by one research group to triple in size by 2025, to $300 billion. 

The Asian Development Bank is holding its annual meeting remotely this month—for just the second time in its history. Covid-19 recovery and sustainability will be key topics.

China's infrastructure diplomacy runs into headwinds in central and eastern Europe.

As the Russian economy continues to emerge from the coronavirus, and as long as investors are hungry for new issues from Russia, it’s likely there will be more IPOs by Russian companies: but likely more in London than New York.

The deal is part of Hitachi’s ongoing strategy to de-emphasize lines of business outside its core focus of information technology.

Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. will use the proceeds to pay for the acquisition of its mobile unit.

While Airbnb has done better than most of its competitors in the pandemic, it still faces a challenging road ahead. 

Kazakhstan is embracing cutting-edge fintech.

It’s been a long time coming, but Argentina is finally back. In mid-April, after being frozen out of global capital markets for 15 years, the country sold $16.5 billion of debt in an offering that was more than four times oversubscribed—the biggest bond ever sold in an emerging market.

In Myanmar, Asia’s odd man out and a global pariah for decades, small signs of progress mean a lot. So the early December launch of the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) was a big deal—even if no stocks trade there yet.

Newsmakers | Ukraine
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have run high since late 2013, when Russia resisted Ukrainian efforts to move out of the Russian sphere of influence and toward the West.

Milestones | Cyprus
The enormous economic challenges faced by Greece have overshadowed a different kind of drama elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

Milestones | Russia
During economic crises, Russia’s banking sector has tended to make a bad situation worse; The current crisis appears to be no different.

Newsmakers | Argentina
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in early October triggered the resignation of the head of the country’s central bank, Juan Carlos Fabrega, by criticizing him for not reducing manipulation of the country’s currency. His replacement, Alejandro Vanoli, formerly the head of the country’s securities regulator, CNV, doesn’t look likely to set Argentina on a better path.

THAILAND
When Thailand’s general Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in a military coup in late May, he didn’t rely on the element of surprise

An escalation of sanctions on Russia stemming from its actions in Ukraine could pressure Russia’s overall economic growth. Some companies, particularly those perceived to have close ties to president Vladimir Putin and his inner circle, may have difficulties tapping the international capital markets for funding.

With good demographics and potential opportunities for FDI in a range of sectors, Iran is poised to make the most of further relaxing of economic sanctions.

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe is one of Africa’s last old-school dictators. But he’s proving that he may be able to change—for the better. In the decade ending in 2008, Zimbabwe’s economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.1%. Then, in 2009, the country adopted the US dollar. Since then, growth has averaged nearly 8% per year...

EMERGING MARKETS ROUNDUP   By Kim Iskyan   In December, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia’s most high-profile political prisoners and the former CEO of Yukos Oil—at one point Russia’s largest oil company—was abruptly released.   He had served about 10 ...

EMERGING MARKETS ROUNDUP   By Kim Iskyan   Russian potash giant Uralkali in late July unexpectedly withdrew from an export delivery arrangement with Belarus Potash, the marketing agent for the Russian company and for Belaruskali, the Belarus national potash company. ...

DESPERATE TO DIVERSIFY By Kim Iskyan   The countries of central Asia are working hard to become more than one-trick ponies, as each struggles in its own way to reduce economic reliance on a single growth driver.   The five ...

MILESTONES: RUSSIA/CYPRUS By Kim Iskyan As the Cypriot banking sector imploded in mid-March, Russia, for which Cyprus is an offshore financial services center, was expected to step in and help. But when Moscow decided to keep its wallet in its ...

NEW CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR EXPECTED TO TOE THE POLITICAL LINE   By Kim Iskyan   The Russian economy continued to show signs of a slowdown, with GDP rising just 0.1% year-on-year in February.     Weakness in household consumption growth, which ...

A REGION TRANSFORMED   By Kim Iskyan   The ability of workers in Asia to increase their skill set and improve their quality of life will be key themes at the Asian Development Bank’s upcoming annual meeting in Delhi, India. ...

MILESTONE：INDIA By Kim Iskyan On the first day of 2013, the Indian government formally launched a program to distribute subsidy benefits and social welfare payments directly to the bank accounts of recipients.   Photo Credits: PAWEL PIETRASZEWSKI/ Shutterstock.com Once the ...

GAZPROM DOUBLES PROFITS AS IT PREPARES FOR “EFFICIENCY” AUDIT   By Kim Iskyan   Gas giant Gazprom reported that net profit doubled in the third quarter of 2012, thanks to forex gains.   The results came just days after the ...

PUTIN NIXES CALLS FOR POLITICAL REFORM   By Kim Iskyan   During his annual state-of-the-union address in mid-December, president Vladimir Putin focused on social spending priorities, including raising salaries for teachers, doctors and other professionals.   He also underscored the need ...

BATTLE RAGES ON FOR NORILSK NICKEL   By Kim Iskyan   Russia’s economy continued to show signs of slowing, as preliminary GDP for October 2012 clocked in at a very weak 2.3%, marking the fifth consecutive month of deceleration.   ...

ROSNEFT-TNK-BP MERGER CREATES WORLD’S LARGEST OIL PRODUCER   By Kim Iskyan   Russian state oil producer Rosneft said it would purchase fellow oil giant TNK-BP from BP and a group of Russian investors, for $55 billion. The transaction would create the ...

SBERBANK STAKE SOLD   By Kim Iskyan   State savings bank Sberbank’s 7.6% stake sale went through in mid-September, raising $5.2 billion and leaving the central bank a 50% plus-one-share stake in the country’s largest bank.   The sale had been ...