Economic insights

North America and Europe generate approximately 75 per cent of digital content for Internet users worldwide.  Amid weak GDP growth worldwide and flattening of traditional foreign trade and investment, international digital exchanges are rapidly growing.  The challenge is how governance structures can be formed that reconcile 'public welfare' and 'individual privacy'.

The renegotiation of NAFTA promises to be a highly contentious affair, with the two smaller members poised to resist efforts by their larger neighbour to craft regional trade rules hewing to Trump’s “America First” project.

This article explores the use of Big Data by middle market businesses, whose adoption of these new technologies lags behind that of other sectors of the international business community. 

An article by David Bartlett, RSM's Economic Adviser. Foreign middle market businesses surveying the Chinese market in 2016 will encounter a more challenging environment than the one multinational corporations faced during the early years of China’s global economic opening.

An article by David Bartlett, RSM's Economic Adviser. The Internet of Things offers great promise as a truly disruptive technology with strong international commercial potential. This article examines the global landscape of IoT, focusing on technology applications in key industries.

Historically, the incremental development and high costs of renewable energy discouraged the rapid expansion of that industry. But recent shifts in the commercial and technological landscape signal a transformative moment for renewable energy, which now presents a credible challenge to fossil fuels in the competition for global investment.

In October 2015, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its semi-annual World Economic Outlook. The IMF forecasts global economic output to grow by 3.6 percent in 2016, an improvement over world GDP growth rates in 2014 (3.4 percent) and 2015 (3.1 percent). 

By most measures, emerging markets have outperformed developed economies since the Great Recession. Between 2010-14, emerging/developing economies posted averaged annual real GDP growth of 5.8 percent versus 1.8 percent in the advanced industrialised countries.

In June 2015 the U.S. Congress granted fast track authority to President Barack Obama, clearing the way for final negotiations of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP). The completion of the 12-member TPP would create a mega-regional zone representing 40 percent of global GDP and 26 percent of world trade.

Despite a turbulent 2014, fund managers and sector analysts have expressed confidence in the resilience of Singapore’s investment environment for the future.