Good News?
Let’s join the club!
Unfortunately, a definitive majority of news I report on and discuss on this blog is of the negative kind. It does them a true adage that good news is not really news people tend to be drawn to. I looked at many of the reports, articles, and other blog topic ideas I have gathered recently and about 50% were negative toned and most of the others were strictly analytical, with only a few being positive. There is good news in Central Asia, right?
Yes, there is. But like most things in life it comes with caveats and concerns. The latest IMF Regional Economic Outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia sees a ‘Bright‘ outlook. The report cites commodity prices remaining high, surging investments, and strong productivity gains as it predicts sustained growth above 6% in the region. The Outlook states that all the countries included, except Kazakhstan, were largely unscathed by the recent financial downturn enveloping the developed world. It is true that much of the growth has to do with tremendous rise in energy prices and the fact that many of the world’s major energy suppliers are from these two regions, but the Outlook does an effective job of organizing the region’s nations into three categories, oil exporters, low-income countries, and emerging markets, and offering separate analysis’s of their unique situation.
Even with positive signs of economic growth the region has many structural problems and poverty is blatant throughout CA, but this is overall good news. The region, like the rest of the world, is indeed going through tough economic times, and in some cases things appear to be getting worse, not better. But growth is positive, and hopefully this continues and signifies a brighter future for the region.