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Key View: The Chinese central government will accelerate its Made In China 2025 programme as trade barriers threaten its access to key foreign technology, and technological progress remains a key source of legitimacy for the Communist Party.

In our view, China will double down on its efforts to be self-reliant in tech in order to advance its

• Kuwait is a reasonably attractive destination for innovative medicine launches, yet regulatory deficiencies limit its appeal to any meaningful investment.
• The domestic pharmaceutical industry is well-placed to attract greater investment.
• The majority of medicines will remain sourced from abroad from multinational drugmakers.

Forecasts:

Drug

The UK government's White Paper on its proposed future relationship with the EU should bring reassurances for the Autos sector on key issues such as free trade and type approvals. This should ensure no major shocks to the UK market through inventory disruption and we have maintained our forecasts for now.

The Latest: The UK government has

Key View: The re-imposition of US nuclear-related sanctions will substantially weaken Iran's economy, and further fuel popular discontent inside the Islamic Republic. That said, with longstanding partners such as China and Russia maintaining engagement, a severe, multi-year depression and resultant political destabilisation appear unlikely to occur

The latest: The chances of a second consecutive Czech rate hike have increased. This follows from a July 24 interview of Czech National Bank (CNB) board member Vojtech Benda, who told Bloomberg that he saw room for debate on a further rate hike at the next rate meeting on August 2. Benda's tightening calls were backed by the CNB's Chief Economist

Key View: Investment in Tajikistan's transport infrastructure sector over the next decade will primarily be driven by two factors: the critical need to rehabilitate and upgrade domestic road networks, and the expansion of regional transport links on the back of China's Belt & Road initiative. As a landlocked country, the road and rail segments will

Key View:

• Increased cost-containment across Europe will result in greater consumption of lower margin drugs.
• Consolidation and vertical integration of medicine wholesale and retail markets is increasing.
• Drugmakers may improve market access in Central Europe but revenues may be repressed.

Transformation of the pharmaceutical supply chain

Key View: The economic liberalisation of Myanmar has led to an uptick in foreign investment in the country's beverage industry, with Yoma Strategic Holdings announcing its joint venture with Pernod Ricard to produce and sell whiskies in Myanmar. Alcohol consumption in Myanmar is expected to pick up, albeit from a low base, due to rising disposable

Key View: Increasing incidence of labour strike action in the UK and Norwegian offshore infrastructure raises the risk to the timely completion of project timelines as well as the longer term investment attractiveness of the region.

• Unresolved labour disputes raise the risk of disruption to project timelines.
• Further striking and powerful

Key View: Kiribati released the KV20 in July, which outlines the government's long-term development plans for 2016-2036. Although the growth targets are overly ambitious, we see the blueprint as generally positive for the economy. We are revising our average real GDP growth forecast upwards to 2.7% per annum over the coming decade (from 2.0%