Following on from my recent blog about “Is Manufacturing Coming Back to the US?” one of Morgan Stanley’s Investment guys, Ruchir Sharma, (Managing Director and the head of the Emerging Markets Equity team) has a book out called ‘Breakout Nations’ and in it he says:
“Every Investment idea is right for a while”
He was talking to Fareed Zakaria on his GPS program. Fareed cited that in the 1980’s investing in Japan made you a big winner until the 90’s came around. In the 1990’s it was all about Tech stocks. Then the Tech bubble burst. The Fad for the 2000’s was emerging markets.
And he asked are emerging markets submerging? I was interested mainly because the discussion lead to which countries invest most in R&D, and that is a leading indicator of success for economies worldwide. In fact, the numbers don’t lie. It looks like we may be entering a new phase with different leaders of growth, and it may be the US that becomes the new focus of manufacturing and innovation.
The numbers coming out month after month show that we seem to be tracking a slow but steady recovery. As I’ve said before, I’m cautiously optimistic about the manufacturing sector – especially in the USA.
On Thursday (3rd January, 2013), ADP1 said construction added 39,000 positions in December, second only to trade and transportation utilities, which grew 53,000. Medium- and larger-sized businesses led the way with 102,000 and 87,000 new jobs respectively
Overall, Employers added 1.84 million jobs in 20112, the most in five years. In the first 11 months of 2012, employers added 1.67 million. Job gains would have to top 170,000 in December to push 2012 ahead of the previous year. Some economists do expect gains at that level or higher.
Even in Asia things are looking up. In the New Year we learned about China’s services growth3, as China’s official purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector rose to 56.1 in December from 55.6 in November, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Other PMIs on the manufacturing sector suggest China’s growth is starting to pick up based on late 2012 data. Not the heady double-digit growth of earlier years, but increases none-the-less. Construction was also up, though all of this growth is partly owing to government investment. The Friday (4th January 2013) HSBC PMI report shows slower growth as it mainly focuses on the private sector. The HSBC report4 showed a softening from 52.1 to 51.7. As you know above 50 is still good. India’s looking good too re PMI for last month! Read More »
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, China’s internet traffic will grow 600 percent in the next two years. At that point, China will also be home to nearly a quarter of the world’s broadband users and 21 percent of the world’s connected devices. This substantial growth, combined with the country’s rapid urbanization, opens the door to many new business opportunities.
With this in mind, Cisco today announced the latest in its strategy to capitalize on the growing China market, a US$ 200m joint venture with China Electronics Software Information Service Co., Ltd. Cisco will contribute 43% and China Electronics Software Information Service Co., Ltd 57% of the joint venture funding. The joint venture agreement is subject to the appropriate regulatory approvals.
The joint venture will provide valuable end to end solutions for public services and industry applications. For example, one solution may be an education cloud to help parents, teachers, and students in schools all across China access the latest education material through interactive whiteboards, laptops, tablets, and other devices.
Based in Shanghai, the joint venture will create new, open standards-based products not currently offered by Cisco, and integrate those new products with existing technologies and create cloud-based solutions including cloud storage, cloud management and network transportation, for public and private projects in China.
Yesterday at the Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China Partner-Led Network Conference that took place in Bangkok, we took the opportunity to announce the recipients of the Cisco Smart Service awards. The purpose of these awards is to recognise our partners and customers from the region who showed forward-thinking approaches in the delivery and integration of Cisco Smart Services. The winners were chosen for their innovation and expertise that enable “Smart Everywhere” for their end-users across the region.
The awards are divided up into three categories; partner awards -- for partners who used Smart Services to accelerate growth of their services business; vendor awards -- for vendors who have demonstrated innovation and operational excellence for Cisco Services; and customer awards -- for those customers that have used Smart Services to fuel their business performance, efficiency and productivity.
Service providers in developing countries have the potential to kick-start economic growth by helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) take advantage of information and communications technology (ICT), especially cloud services. The “greenfield” nature of ICT in many emerging economies creates the opportunity to “leapfrog” to cloud computing.
For some time, governments have recognized the role of broadband in supporting economic development. The World Bank states that for every 10 percent of broadband penetration in a developing economy, there is typically a 1.38 percent increase in GDP.
Each year, there have been tangible improvements in broadband networks across emerging markets. However, in Read More »
Even in Asia things are looking up. In the New Year we learned about China’s services growth3, as China’s official purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector rose to 56.1 in December from 55.6 in November, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Other PMIs on the manufacturing sector suggest China’s growth is starting to pick up based on late 2012 data. Not the heady double-digit growth of earlier years, but increases none-the-less. Construction was also up, though all of this growth is partly owing to government investment. The Friday (4th January 2013) HSBC PMI report shows slower growth as it mainly focuses on the private sector. The HSBC report4 showed a softening from 52.1 to 51.7. As you know above 50 is still good. India’s looking good too re PMI for last month! 
By Peter Ford, Director, IBSG Service Provider