Tag Archive for 'Europe'

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New Hope?

Published on January 19, 2009 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

obamaShortly after midday on January 20th, Barack Obama will sit for the first time at the desk where the buck stops. The American presidency is always the world’s hardest and most consequential job, but it seems particularly so this month. A global recession of a severity not seen for perhaps 80 years; a new war in the Middle East and old ones in Africa; missions very far from accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan; a prickly Russia and a rising China.

These international challenges must jostle for the president’s attention alongside noisy domestic concerns like rocketing unemployment, the desperate need for a better health-care system, exploding deficits and failing cities. The burdens, surely, are too many for one man to bear.

The Beginning of a Multilateral Economic System

Published on November 17, 2008 in Emerging Markets, Global Strategy, International Business and International Finance. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Global economic meetings used to mean the G7 and then the G8. However, last weekend marked the emergence of a new phenomenon the G20. Which have set stage for the beginning of a better multilateral economic system.

It used to be a rich-country affair with Russia invited in during in the 1990s – but that was to tackle international political issues, not for the sake of a contribution to the economic discussions. However times have changed. A global economic problem needed a presence from developing country leaders.

This being said. In light of aforementioned, last weekend, Presidents and prime ministers from a score of rich and emerging economies descended on Washington, DC, ostensibly to remake the rules of global finance. They came to Washington, as countries hit by the developed world’s financial crisis and, in some cases, as countries that might be able to help fix it.

The G20 (more formally, the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors), created after the emerging-market crises a decade ago, is not perfect for today’s problems. It excludes a big economy with an admired system of financial regulation (Spain) but includes a mid-sized country that has become irrelevant to global finance because of its own mismanagement (Argentina). Still, the G20 includes most of the key parts of the rich and emerging world, making it a better forum for global economic co-operation than the G7 group of rich countries, which has until now held the stage (Source: The Economist).

A recapitulation and highlights of the G20 meeting can be found here:
- BBC News: G20 summit: In quotes
- BBC News: G20 declaration: Full text

OBAMA

Published on November 5, 2008 in International Business and Ranting and Raving. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday November 4th 2008, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

Hopefully Obama will reinvent America and ties better balanced international relations especially with Europe in order to seriously address global challenges such as climate change, countering poverty, further enhancing economic integration, etc.

You can find more on the 2008 USA Presidential elections here.

Happy 10th Anniversary

Published on May 7, 2008 in International Finance. 0 Comments Tags: , .

EuroToday is the 10th anniversary of the agreement that launched the single currency. However, residents of the first 12 EU states that adopted the Euro didn’t begin using Euro banknotes and coins until 1 January, 2002.

When the euro was launched there were plenty of people who thought it would crash and burn. Ten years on, its role as a global currency is secure, even if it hasn’t achieved everything its founders hoped such as higher living standards (per capita income) and less divergence between national economies. But it has achieved macroeconomic stability and financial stability when reflecting to the recent credit crunch.

There are now 15 European countries who are members of the Eurozone, with a common currency, the Euro, and a single interest rate set by the European Central Bank (ECB). They make up 72% of the EU’s GDP. Click here for the Eurozone in figures.

Global Recession?

Published on May 5, 2008 in Emerging Markets and International Finance. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Global Recession?The International Monetary Fund has come out with its latest set of forecasts of the world economy. The report says at one point:

“The IMF staff now sees a 25 percent chance that global growth will drop to 3 percent or less in 2008 and 2009—equivalent to a global recession.”

Since when is 3% growth equivalent to a “global recession”? According to my textbook, periods of negative GDP growth are called recessions.

By this “new’ definition, the world economy has been in recession 1980-83, 1990-93, 1998, and 2001-2002. In other words, 11 out of the last 28 years. There are no negative years of world growth.

Here are the IMF’s latest world growth numbers, and forecasts out to 2013.
Annual World Economic Growth

Euro 2008! Hup Holland!

Published on December 2, 2007 in Personal and Ranting and Raving. 1 Comment Tags: .

Oranje The Dutchies can expect three challenging football matches next summer during Euro 2008 held in Austria and Switzerland! Today, faith has drawn Holland together with World Champion Italy, World Champion runner-up France and Romania (who ended ahead of Holland in the qualification group) in the same group. At least “we” know what to expect with these opponents.

Holland boss Marco Van Basten added: “That really is a hard one. The Romanians posed us so many problems in the qualifiers, and before that we will have Italy and France, but at least we know what we are up against.”

The good thing about this drawn up is that we can expect three exciting matches in which Holland don’t has the make the game itself. Which is a good thing since there will be lots of space to ball around for us as well. Let the football craziness begin!

The full Groups are:

Group A                        Group B
Switzerland                     Austria
Czech Republic               Croatia
Portugal                          Germany
Turkey                            Poland

Group C                        Group D
Holland                            Greece
Italy                                 Sweden
Romania                          Spain
France                             Russia

Europe’s rising entrepreneurial spirit!

Published on June 21, 2007 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

European Young Entrepreneurs

Here some additional musing on my previous entry (The new radar screen of VCs) which elaborates on today’s hotness of Europe’s economy!

Amongst others, owing to increasingly favourable macroeconomic conditions and the rise of Web 2.0 enabled initiatives; youngsters are flocking throughout Europe to start their first entrepreneurial advances.

Those youngsters have one thing in common, they all posses the passion and drive to utilise upon undiscovered consumer needs and enable uncontested market space. A narrow selection of twenty-five young entrepreneurs active in Europe can be found here.

BTW. Also checkout the special reports published by The Economist on European Business (February 2007) and The European Union (March 2007).

European Happiness

Published on April 19, 2007 in Personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

European Hapiness


The Northern Europeans are the happiest, according to a biannual European social survey conducted by Corrado & Aslam, Cambridge University.

The Danes are topping the list while Italy is on the bottom. The Dutch are fifth which is quite representative I guess! The sample size of the study was 20,000 responses spread over 15 European countries.

The major factors influencing happiness according Corrado & Aslam (2007) are the quality of social interactions with others and confidence and trust in national government and institutions. Check out this website for more technical information on the European happiness survey.

Top 50 European business schools

Published on December 15, 2005 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , .

London Business School
As expected, London Business School (LBS) lead for the second consecutive year Financial Times’ ranking list of best European b-school. LBS is ranked top in both the full-time and Executive MBA programme. For the Dutchies among us, Erasmus University, Rotterdam ranked 7th in best European full-time MBA programme and 17th overall.

Not that I am planning to pursue a MBA challenge after graduating for my Master degree, in 1,5 years from now. *sigh*, that sounds really long, right? Although, as I noticed, according the last half year time really flies these days so 1,5 year becomes suddenly really short, isn’t? :) Over the long run I might consider doing a MBA, especially because it seems like a great investment to justify. Consider a tuition fee of £41.970,- (not including living expenses) in light of the average salary three years after graduation, as a LBS-er of $126.590,-. Even with today’s currency exchange rate it still looks good. -P Well, up till now, I still think I do not need a MBA for achieving my (ultimate career related) dreams. Maybe that will change in the future when having achieved these dreams…haha..Out for now!

The complete FT ranking can be found here.

Europe United!

Published on January 30, 2005 in Personal. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Europe United


Brussels is full of monuments to the “builders of Europe”. There is the Schuman district, the Monnet circle, the Spinelli building. It may now be time for a Stelios Square or a Boulevard O’Leary. For in recent years, Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Michael O’Leary, the two pioneers of Europe’s low-cost airlines, have done more to integrate Europe than any numbers of diplomats and ministers. They have helped to create a new generation for whom travelling to another European country is no longer exotic or expensive, but utterly commonplace.