Articles

Flipkart's acquisition of eBay India highlights two key aspects of doing business in the country's fast-growing but highly challenging e-commerce market. Firstly, returns on investment will be elusive, even in the long-term, due to the low-value capital-intensive nature of the Indian market. Secondly, consolidation in the short term will not starve

Our Africa team expects the Kenyan economy to grow by 5.7% in 2014, with growth forecast to average more than 6% thereafter over the forecast period to 2023. We expect this outlook to drive growth in the food and drink sector, where Kenya has a number of very well-established companies, none more so than East African Breweries (EABL) - a unit of

Several sectors in the Middle East and North Africa region are set for particularly impressive growth, despite generally slower economic activity in the region over the next decade compared to the last. A survey of our industry research heads highlighted six hotspots including: UAE infrastructure and pharmaceuticals & healthcare, Iran luxury retail

We hold to our 2017 annual average forecast for Brent of USD57.00/bbl as we expect seasonally firming demand for crude and fuels in Q2 and Q3 to drive down inventories and offer support to prices. Price upside will however be capped by the recovering US shale sector and softer OPEC compliance over Q3. We have downgraded 2017 WTI to USD53.75/bbl, as

India's pharmaceutical market represents a significant growth opportunity for drugmakers, aided by pharmaceutical regulatory development and healthcare reforms. Despite this, a tough pricing environment and low levels of intellectual property protection will remain ongoing concerns for multinational pharmaceutical firms.

Growth within India's

The March 30 cabinet reshuffle, which saw former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan replaced with Malusi Gigaba, suggests substantial risks to the fiscal outlook in South Africa. Zuma's decision to put a political ally in the role of finance minister could augur a significant ramp-up in wages and other social transfers, a decision to move forward on a

Growth within the North America construction industry will overtake Western Europe over the coming five years, as a number of eurozone markets slow, while the US and Canadian construction sectors accelerate. Ireland and Sweden stand out growth outperformers, while Spain, France and Germany will lag behind the regional growth average.

BMI

The decision to replace Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will have significant economic consequences for South Africa, weakening the currency, increasing the risk of fiscal slippage and weighing on investor sentiment. Politically, the consequences depend largely on the response of the anti-Zuma wing of the ruling African National Congress, with

BMI Research recently held a webinar in which we presented our Emerging Markets Key Themes (see 'Emerging Markets Key Themes Chartpack', February 9). Here, we outline our answers to some of the topical questions that came up in the Q&A session.

What is your outlook for services trade versus merchandise trade?

We expect services trade growth to

South Africa's mining sector will continue to face headwinds from policy uncertainty regarding the passing of the draft mining charter, hindering the potential of a recovery since 2016 from becoming solid. We forecast the domestic mining industry value to continue to decline over the coming years.

South Africa's mining sector will continue to feel