Siam News Network

From WSJ’s Davos blog:

Standard Chartered PLC remains bullish on the major Asian economies of India and China, encouraged by the policy outlook for the two countries this year, the bank’s Asia chief executive said.

The U.K.-based lender, which focuses almost exclusively on Asia and emerging economies, also sees European rivals retreating from those markets as they are beset with challenges at home, Standard Chartered Asia Chief Executive Jaspal Bindra said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

In India last year, Standard Chartered confronted a range of challenges including slowing growth, rising interest rates and a depreciating rupee. Revenue from the bank’s India unit fell by 12% in the first half of 2011 and by the “mid-teens” in the third quarter, Group Finance Director Richard Meddings said earlier.

Mr. Bindra blamed higher interest rates. “Interest rates went up almost 400 basis points in a short period, and it is very difficult, if you do wholesale business with the best clients in the country, to pass on a 400 basis point increase at any one time.”

But the central bank’s surprise move to loosen monetary policy this week has sent a “clear signal” that there will be no further rate hikes and the government is shifting its focus to promoting growth, Mr. Bindra said.

The Reserve Bank of India Tuesday held its key lending rate steady for a second straight policy meeting but cut the minimum cash reserve requirement by 0.50 percentage point to ease liquidity.

“The government has for a long time shown a huge preference to manage inflation through monetary policy,” he said. But following the RBI cut, “I think we will see a more balanced approach.”

Mr. Bindra also said that the recent “normalization” of the rupee exchange rate — it is up 6% against the dollar so far this year after declining 15.1% in 2011 — will encourage renewed foreign investment.

In China, Mr. Bindra believes authorities will be successful in guiding the economy to a “soft landing” ahead of a leadership transition at the end of the year.

“The priority for all of 2012 and beyond is going to be ‘how do we keep things stable,’ as they have this transition of power at the top,” he said, adding that not just the top political leadership, but also the leaders of major financial institutions and regulators are all due to be reshuffled. “It is quite a massive-scale change of power.”

As European banks regroup and retreat from Asia, Standard Chartered sees an opening. The trend is especially pronounced in industries including shipping and commodities and in markets like Indonesia and India where dollar liquidity is scarce, he said.

“It gives us an opportunity to scale up market share, and second, it gives us a little bit of pricing advantage.”

– Aaron Back. Follow him on Twitter @AaronBack.

In recent years, China has re-invigorated its support for leading state-owned enterprises in sectors it considers important to “economic security,” explicitly looking to foster globally competitive national champions.

In 2009, China announced that by 2020 it would reduce carbon intensity 40% from 2005 levels.

The government has also focused on foreign trade as a major vehicle for economic growth.

The restructuring of the economy and resulting efficiency gains have contributed to a more than tenfold increase in GDP since 1978.

The disparities between the two sectors have combined to form an economic-cultural-social gap between the rural and urban areas, which is a major division in Chinese society.

The technological level and quality standards of its industry as a whole are still fairly low, notwithstanding a marked change since 2000, spurred in part by foreign investment.

China’s increasing integration with the international economy and its growing efforts to use market forces to govern the domestic allocation of goods have exacerbated this problem.

The growth in both outbound investment from, and inbound investment to, China reflects the nation’s rising economic power and attractiveness as an investment destination.

” Although the figure is already “quite amazing,” the volume is “not large enough” considering China’s economic growth and local companies’ expanding demand for international opportunities, Shen said.

It also aims to sell more than 15 million of the most fuel-efficient vehicles in the world each year by then.

Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s.

Since the late 1970s, China has decollectivized agriculture, yielding tremendous gains in production.

China is the world’s largest producer of rice and wheat and a major producer of sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, corn, soybeans, and potatoes.

China ranks first in world production of red meat (including beef, veal, mutton, lamb, and pork).

Growing domestic demand beginning in the mid-1990s, however, has forced the nation to import increasing quantities of petroleum.

China’s leading export minerals are tungsten, antimony, tin, magnesium, molybdenum, mercury, manganese, barite, and salt.

Major industrial products are textiles, chemicals, fertilizers, machinery (especially for agriculture), processed foods, iron and steel, building materials, plastics, toys, and electronics.

Brick, tile, cement, and food-processing plants are found in almost every province.

Follow this link:
Davos: StanChart Bullish on China, India

Working overtime doesn’t increase your output. It makes you stupid. Arianna Huffington talks often about how the key to her productivity is sleep . It’s a smart suggestion, not least because so many of us still imagine that the more we work, the more productive we are. For over a hundred years or more, this has been deemed nonsense. The first productivity studies were conducted by Ernst Abbe at the Zeiss lens laboratories in the 1880s. They indicated what every other productivity study has shown since: that, up to around 40 hours a week, we’re all pretty productive but, after that, we become less able to deliver reliable, cost-effective work. Why? Because when we get tired, we make mistakes—and the extra hours we put in are absorbed by correcting our errors. This is demonstrably true in industries like software coding, in which mistakes can cost a lot of time to put right. But it is equally true in manufacturing where more units of production also mean more flaws and waste. Even though the data around productivity has proved pretty remorseless, humans have found the message hard to accept. It seems so logical that two units of work will produce twice the output. Logical but wrong. The critical measure of work isn’t and never should be input but output. What matters isn’t how many hours your team puts in, but the quality and quantity of work they produce. Which is where sleep comes in. Although we might all like to imagine that we can work happily through the night, once again the data’s all against us. Lose just one night’s sleep and your cognitive capacity is roughly the same as being over the alcohol limit. Yet we regularly hail as heroes the executives who take the red eye, jump into a rental car, and zoom down the highway to the next meeting. Would we, I wonder, be so impressed if they arrived drunk? The reason sleep is so important is because fatigue isn’t simple. When we are tired, our performance doesn’t degrade equally. Instead, when you lose a night’s sleep, the parietal and occipital lobes in your brain become less active. The parietal lobe integrates information from the senses and is involved in our knowledge of numbers and manipulation of objects. The occipital lobe is involved in visual processing. So the parts of our mind responsible for understanding the world and the data around us start to slow down. This is because the brain is prioritizing the thalamus—the part of your brain responsible for keeping you awake. In evolutionary terms, this makes sense. If you’re driven to find food, you need to stay awake and search, not compare recipes. After 24 hours of sleep deprivation, there is an overall reduction of six percent in glucose reaching the brain. (That’s why you crave donuts and candy.) But the loss isn’t shared equally; the parietal lobe and the prefrontal cortex lose 12 percent to 14 percent of their glucose. And those are the areas we most need for thinking: for distinguishing between ideas, for social control, and to be able to tell the difference between good and bad. I’ve sat in many boardrooms through the night, at the end of which seriously bad deals were done, I’ve seen the cost of sleep deprivation. Not just in bad tempers, bad diets, and bad decisions. But in the loss of truly productive work and discussion that could have been less heroic but a lot more valuable.

Read More:
The Truth About Sleep & Productivity

Economist Nouriel Roubini , aka Dr. Doom, is addicted to Twitter .  This is according to a new interview with The Globe And Mail ‘s Michael Posner . Posner asked Roubini, “At last count, you had more than 128,000 Twitter followers. What do you make of that?”  Roubini’s response: Lady Gaga has millions. Justin Bieber too. But among economists only New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has more. I follow a few hundred. Among the social media – I’ve tried them all – Facebook is a bit of a game, but Twitter is a productivity tool. I use it regularly and I’m addicted to it. Posner’s interview includes questions about Roubini’s outlooks, his personal investments, and his personal life.  You can read the full interview at TheGlobeAndMail.com > Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook . Join the conversation about this story » See Also: Wall Street’s Hottest Smartphone App Can Sniff Out Corporate Bankruptcies Long Before They Happen PETA Wants Jamie Dimon To Hand Over OJ Simpson’s Foreclosed Home Time To Concede Home ‘Ownership’ Is A Fraud

Read the original post:
Nouriel Roubini Is Addicted To Twitter, Calls It A ‘Productivity Tool’

Use these nine techniques to account for how your customer’s brain could be wired, and seal the deal. Since you’re a reader of Inc., I think it’s safe to assume that you and I have something in common: We both need to sell. You probably have your favorite sales techniques, and heaven knows there are hundreds of books on selling, but in my experience most entrepreneurs overlook one crucial aspect of selling: the way your customers’ brains are built. You will naturally get along with people who are like you. But that leaves out 75 percent of other people—and the worst thing you can do while selling is to approach someone the wrong way. The more you study people, the more adept you will become at identifying the ways they think and behave. When you make the effort to see the world through the eyes of others, you will know how to engage their interests and how to help them achieve their ultimate goals. But here are nine ways to use your brain—and your buyers’—to make a deal. 1. Determine right away whether you are talking to “right-brained” or “left-brained” individuals. They require very different approaches. You notice a Nerf basketball hoop, a scribbled whiteboard, and an abstract painting, you know this person is “right-brained.” If instead you notice a place for everything, an organized bookshelf, and technical equipment, you are mostly likely talking to someone “left-brained.” Using an innovative, intuitive, emotional approach on an analytical, logical, practical person would be a disaster. And vice versa. 2. Determine the influencers and decision-makers behind the sale. They may not be the highest-ranked people in the company, and they may not even be in the room when you make your presentation. Ask if it would be okay to “cc” others in the company on your materials and correspondence. 3. Keep your behavior middle-of-the-road until you know more about the prospect. You don’t want to arrive dressed for a rock concert and discover the other person is in Armani office attire. If you are generally enthusiastic but the other person is restrained, try to tone down your natural inclination to make exclamations. If you are generally reserved but the other person is an extravert, try to ratchet up your enthusiasm, so you don’t inadvertently appear indifferent. 4. You can’t be certain what type of brain your buyer has. Therefore, make sure your presentation appeals to all four types of brains. People who are analytical thinkers want to know the “ROI” right up front. Those who are structural thinkers want to improve on processes. Social thinkers, meanwhile, want to make an impact on a relationship or on the welfare of others. Conceptual ones are interested in connecting the dots. Be sure to discuss how (or if) your solution meets all these different needs. 5. To check for analytical thinkers, listen for words like “exactly” and “precisely.” An analytical thinker first wants the bottom line, to make sure your discussion is worth the time it will take. This type of brain doesn’t want to weigh a lot of options. Quickly provide an overview, then sit back and wait. Be prepared to answer all questions with spreadsheets, data, and research, and do not make a mistake or this individual will lose all confidence in you. If you don’t know an answer, say you will get it immediately after the meeting—then do so. 6. To identify structural thinkers, listen for words like “turnaround time,” “preparation,” “realistic,” “wait,” or “hold on while I get this down.” This type of thinker is concerned about whether existing systems might be affected. Be prepared to list exactly how and when your solution can be implemented. 7. To pinpoint social thinkers, listen for words like “we,” “them,” “our,” “us,” and “you all.” Is this individual concerned about relationships? Another clue is if the buyer asks you personal questions, such as, “How do you feel about the way it affects employees?” Social thinkers are eager to bring in others to the conversation. 8. To find conceptual thinkers, listen for immediate questions about the outcome. Like the analytical thinker, this type wants the bottom line right away, but in the context of the bigger picture. The worst thing you can do with a conceptual thinker is spell out everything in detail. Engage this individual’s attention immediately; otherwise you may lose it forever. You may receive farfetched or unrelated questions. Take every question at face value. 9. Keep your buyer focused on the desired solution. Remember that some buyers have several preferences and it takes them a long time to make a decision. They are weighing rationality, processes, people, and vision all at the same time. Thirty-seven percent of the people in the world fall into this kind of multimodal thinking and probably need to carefully process a decision. Allow plenty of time, even if to you it seems to take forever. You are already familiar with what you are selling; your buyer is not. As you wrap up your meeting, keep in mind what is happening in your buyer’s head. Reassure this person that your solution will generate ROI, that it will not interfere with any other systems, that the human factor is addressed, and that the vision is clear. Remember, it’s not about the way you’re product is wired but rather the way your buyer is wired.

See the original post:
What’s Going On In Your Customer’s Head?

Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party leader Tsai Ing-wen made history by being the island’s first female presidential candidate, but her wider-than-expected defeat last Saturday to incumbent Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang has raised questions about the future of her moderate approach.

Ms. Tsai finished with 45.6% of the vote to Mr. Ma’s 51.6%, a loss that prompted her to say she would resign as DPP leader.

A professor before she became a politician, Ms. Tsai is often credited with lifting the pro-independence DPP out of the mire after former president Chen Shui-bian’s rocky and scandal-ridden tenure at the helm.

“She brings gentleness and sensibility to the party,” Joseph Wu, a former Taiwan envoy to the U.S. and a top advisor to the DPP, said shortly after the election. “She is also very capable in facilitating talks between the factions in the party and consolidating opinions.”

That conciliatory leadership style and approachable personality were what drove her surging popularity both within and outside the party, he added.

But Ms. Tsai also won support by dialing back the DPP’s pro-independence rhetoric, analysts said. An example of that more moderate China policy was her appeal for further dialogues with Beijing and her promise to accept all 16 cross-strait trade agreements signed under Mr. Ma’s leadership.

Although she adamantly rejected the 1992 Consensus—a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party that Taiwan and China are one country but each is free to define the term as they see fit—her proposal of a new “Taiwan Consensus” did not completely shut out the option of an eventual unification, a sharp detour from the policy pursued by Mr. Chen.

Despite that softening, Ms. Tsai’s candidacy still did not appear sit well with leaders in Beijing, who warned that any deviation from the 1992 Consensus would compromise the growing harmony on the Taiwan Strait. During the campaign, the “Taiwan Consensus” became one favorite points of attack for Mr. Ma and the KMT, who pointed to it as evidence that Ms. Tsai was naïve to the realities of cross-strait relations.

Yet some analysts said they expected Beijing might still be open to dialogue with a Tsai administration — a notion considered far-fetched during the previous DPP regime.

What effect Ms. Tsai’s loss will have on the party’s platform remains to be seen. The fact that she lost by six percentage points – late polls had her losing by between 3% and 5% — is already being interpreted by some as an indictment of her decision to emphasize social equality and her deviation from the party’s anti-China orthodoxy.

“Obviously, a campaign focused on social justice was not enough to excite the traditional DPP supporters,” said Wu, adding in the future, the party should incorporate more of the possible threats to Taiwan’s sovereignty under the KMT such as China’s continual interference in Taiwan’s quest for more international participation.

Shelley Rigger, a professor of political science at Davidson College expressed similar views, saying that while Ms. Tsai should be lauded for restoring burnishing the DPP’s image, she might have overlooked a key constituency – the “green” pro-independence die-hards—who might constrain the DPP from moving to the center.

“[Tsai] did as well as anyone could have done at pacifying the deep greens, by refusing to accept the ’92 consensus, and at the same time minimizing the role of those ideological issues in the elections, by trying not to talk about that anymore than she had to. The result was still hitting that 45% ceiling,” she said.

Ms. Tsai’s tenure as party leader will officially terminate on March 1, the DPP said, and it’s unclear what she plans to do next. She has said she plans to maintain an office and rumors suggest she may take the reins at a think tank she helped set up.

Analysts say Beijing is concerned less about Ms. Tsia’s future and more about who her successor might be and whether that person will continue the moderate stance she has championed.

“Beijing takes a great interest in the DPP’s leadership because there is always a chance that the DPP might return to power. But I think no matter who becomes the next DPP chairman, the party will retain the more moderate stance,” said Shih Cheng-feng, a dean at National Dong Hwa University.

Party heavyweights Frank Hsieh and Su Tseng-chang are widely speculated to be vying for the seat, though some political commentators on the island say the party should allow up-and-coming stars, such as some of the current DPP county magistrates, to have a shot.

Whether or not Ms. Tsai tries her luck again in 2016, her contribution to the DPP seems likely to be remembered as revolutionary, in a moderate way.

– Jenny W. Hsu

Measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis that adjusts for price differences, China in 2009 stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US, although in per capita terms the country is still lower middle-income.

In 2009, the global economic downturn reduced foreign demand for Chinese exports for the first time in many years.

The People’s Republic of China is the world’s second largest economy after the United States by both nominal GDP ($5 trillion in 2009) and by purchasing power parity ($8.77 trillion in 2009).

Available energy is insufficient to run at fully installed industrial capacity, and the transport system is inadequate to move sufficient quantities of such critical items as coal.

The two most important sectors of the economy have traditionally been agriculture and industry, which together employ more than 70 percent of the labor force and produce more than 60 percent of GDP.

A report by UBS in 2009 concluded that China has experienced total factor productivity growth of 4 per cent per year since 1990, one of the fastest improvements in world economic history.

The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship, whilst retaining state domination of the economy.

China now ranks as the fifth largest global investor in outbound direct investment (ODI) with a total volume of $56.5 billion, compared to a ranking of 12th in 2008, the Ministry of Commerce said on Sunday.

In 2009, global ODI volume reached $1.1 trillion, and China contributed about 5.1 percent of the total.

China reiterated the nation’s goals for the next decade – increasing market share of pure-electric and plug-in electric autos, building world-competitive auto makers and parts manufacturers in the energy-efficient auto sector as well as raising fuel-efficiency to world levels.

In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the GDP quadrupled between 1978 and 1998, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s.

Even with these improvements, agriculture accounts for only 20% of the nation’s gross national product.

In terms of cash crops, China ranks first in cotton and tobacco and is an important producer of oilseeds, silk, tea, ramie, jute, hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.

Horses, donkeys, and mules are work animals in the north, while oxen and water buffalo are used for plowing chiefly in the south.

Coal is the most abundant mineral (China ranks first in coal production); high-quality, easily mined coal is found throughout the country, but especially in the north and northeast.

There are also deposits of vanadium, magnetite, copper, fluorite, nickel, asbestos, phosphate rock, pyrite, and sulfur.

China also has extensive hydroelectric energy potential, notably in Yunnan, W Sichuan, and E Tibet, although hydroelectric power accounts for only 5% of the country’s total energy production.

Other leading ports are rail termini, such as Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur, the port of Dalian), on the South Manchuria RR; and Qingdao, on the line from Jinan.

Read more here:
What Next for Taiwan’s Opposition?

Many activities have been planned in Bangkok and other major provinces in celebration of the upcoming Chinese New Year and to welcome the Year of the Dragon.This years Chinese New Year’s Day falls on January 23.

Read the original:
Thailand plans Big Celebration for Chinese Year of the Dragon

The output of other sectors was also affected during the recent crisis, although less markedly because they had been growing slower than the sectors linked to external demand.
Policies that could contribute to reducing Thailand’s dependence on foreign demand include a phased liberalization of the services sector, boosting transport infrastructure, a reform of educational curricula and improved access and quality of higher education to boost skills of the labor force, better integration of universities, firms and government, and improved social safety nets

Pathom Yongvanich, a founding partner of PYI, says Asian markets have not only benefited from the inflow of international capital, but also from the growing sophistication of Asian investors themselves.
Mr Pathom noted that past a certain level of market capitalization, investors appear to take a different view on valuations.

China’s growth rate is slowing but it is still a good investment for a long-term play. Jim McCaughan, CEO of Principal Global Investors, tells Deborah Kan investors should look to the U.S. for the near term.

After keeping its currency tightly linked to the US dollar for years, China in July 2005 revalued its currency by 2 % against the US dollar and moved to an exchange rate system that references a basket of currencies.

In 2006, China announced that by 2010 it would decrease energy intensity 20% from 2005 levels.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Nevertheless, key bottlenecks continue to constrain growth.

The disparities between the two sectors have combined to form an economic-cultural-social gap between the rural and urban areas, which is a major division in Chinese society.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship, whilst retaining state domination of the economy.

The ministry made the announcements during a press conference held in Xiamen on the upcoming United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Forum and the 14th China International Fair for Investment and Trade.

In this period the average annual growth rate stood at more than 50 percent.

It also aims to sell more than 15 million of the most fuel-efficient vehicles in the world each year by then.

China’s challenge in the early 21st century will be to balance its highly centralized political system with an increasingly decentralized economic system.

Despite initial gains in farmers’ incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation, and because the state owns all land farmers have at times been easily evicted when croplands are sought by developers.

Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east.

Horses, donkeys, and mules are work animals in the north, while oxen and water buffalo are used for plowing chiefly in the south.

There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province.

There are also deposits of vanadium, magnetite, copper, fluorite, nickel, asbestos, phosphate rock, pyrite, and sulfur.

China’s exploitation of its high-sulfur coal resources has resulted in massive pollution.

Other leading ports are rail termini, such as Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur, the port of Dalian), on the South Manchuria RR; and Qingdao, on the line from Jinan.

View post:
Investor: Take U.S. for Near Term, China for Long Term

Author: John West, MrGlobalization

How does a Cold War organisation like the OECD respond to the end of the Cold War? Does it try to hang on to its former identity? Or does it embrace the new ‘age of globalisation’?

The end of the Cold War in 1989 represented a victory of values and ideology — the triumph of pluralistic democracy, respect for human rights and the market economy — for the OECD and its member countries. At the time, Asian economies were also emerging rapidly, based on a complex cocktail of export promotion, strong state intervention and non-democratic politics. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, a number of these Asian economies were ‘economically qualified’ for OECD membership in terms of GDP per capita. But politically, there was never any suggestion that they might join.

Politics has always trumped economics at the OECD, even though economics is its core business. In the 1990s, for example, four central European countries were rushed in as members (following Mexico’s 1994 membership), while they were still fledgling market economies and democracies. They were the lost sheep of the North Atlantic community, having been occupied by the Soviets, and Western Europe and the US strongly supported their membership ambitions.

But Korea’s membership was very much a different case in point. It was economically better qualified, with a GDP per capita more than 60 per cent higher than the other five new members. It was perhaps even more qualified politically. Nevertheless, it is widely recognised that the OECD went soft on Mexico and the central European countries during the membership process, and went much tougher on Korea.

By 2007 when it came to inviting other countries to join the OECD, none of the most interesting possible members — Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa — had expressed interest in joining. They were offered and accepted a program of ‘Enhanced Engagement’, which was designed to prepare them for possible future membership.

Today the OECD finds itself with 34 members, with some 24 from Europe and only two from Asia. In contrast, the WTO’s list of the world’s 34 leading exporters includes 10 Asian economies. Many of these Asian countries are also internationally significant in areas such as investment, finance and carbon emissions — and school students from Shanghai now outperform all OECD countries in the organisation’s Programme for International Student Assessment, which measures literacy, numeracy and scientific ability. But while the Enhanced Engagement countries participate in a wide array of OECD activities, none of them are interested in membership. A very senior OECD official once described this program as a ‘one-way love affair’.

So the OECD, which has sometimes called itself a ‘hub of globalisation’, seems destined to have a membership which accounts for an ever-declining share of the world economy. It stands at a crossroads, bypassed by Asian-led globalisation at a time when the G20 has more member countries from Asia than Europe.

What are the main problems and solutions?

Even though it is essentially an economic organisation, the OECD has retained a strong North Atlantic political identity. This is partly because it is governed by foreign ministries and also because of the US’ dominant role. And as the recent UN vote on Libya showed, there are still vast political gulfs between the Enhanced Engagement and OECD countries.

New members are also forced to accept and align their policies with a now vast array of instruments and conditions they had no role in creating. From an OECD point of view, this means becoming a ‘responsible stakeholder’. From an emerging country point of view, it means being a ‘rule-taker’, that is, swallowing an OECD agenda now increasingly questioned in light of recent financial crises.  The OECD also has too many European members.  Something must be done about this ‘eurocentricity’, such as establishing constituencies, to improve the organisation’s effectiveness.

Overall, the OECD must adapt much more radically to the changed world and offer a more flexible and pragmatic approach to the application of its values and instruments through its membership. It must then launch a major campaign to recruit the Enhanced Engagement countries as members. The OECD Secretariat and its membership have not yet managed to convince emerging Asian economies of the organisation’s manifest benefits. But the OECD is still in many ways the best idea in town, with its excellent analysis and opportunities for policy dialogue. And emerging Asia has much to learn from the OECD experience in many areas, like developing social safety nets, economic upgrading, dealing with ageing populations, and public-sector reform.

As well as revitalising the OECD, this strategy could contribute to improving relations between the two major blocs which divide the world today — the OECD countries and the Enhanced Engagement countries.

John West is Editor-in-Chief at MrGlobalization.  This article is based on his paper ‘The OECD and Asia: Worlds Apart in Today’s Globalization’, published in Revista de Economia Mundial No. 28 (2011), 67–92.

1. OECD policy brief on emerging economic giants
2. Engaging Central Asia: the EU-Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) axis
3. The South Asia Cold War ‘quadrilateral’ redux?

Go here to see the original:
The OECD and Asia: a Cold War organisation in the age of globalisation