【KC's Column】 Just not long ago, two Russian missiles hit the territory of Poland, killing two Polish citizens.
ANBOUND's founder Kung Chan observed that in the development of the event, it is unlikely that U.S. President Joe Biden would want to get involved. The same is true for NATO and the EU. A Poland that counterattacks is more dangerous than the Russian President Vladimir Putin who launches missiles, would force Europe and the U.S. to get into the war directly. Hence, it is expected that Poland would be urged to "stay calm" and act "appropriately". The war history of the European continent has always been in a cycle of disintegration and integration, and it is now in the disintegration phase. Smaller European countries no longer hope for the help of bigger powers. If anything, the Baltic countries can only unite to fend for themselves. Perhaps the United Nations might take some actions, or maybe there would be some sort of retaliative moves, yet so long as nothing is done, the two missiles that bombed Poland would practically spell the end of NATO. The United States might get stronger and more powerful, but the same will not happen to NATO.
>> The repeated outbreaks of COVID-19 is the biggest influencing factor in China's economic growth.. The continued downturn in the real estate market, weak investment, and risk accumulation have generally dampened the urban economy and gradually dragged banks down. The slowdown in external demand is weakening the role of exports in driving the economy. October was the first month of the fourth quarter of 2022, and the economic signals presented at the beginning of the quarter were negative, which was undoubtedly a blow to the market's expectations of increased efforts to stabilize growth in that quarter. Judging from the rebound of the novel coronavirus outbreaks in many parts of the country in November, there may be another wave of blows to the fragile economy. The possibility of the economic stabilization in the fourth quarter will not be as good as expected. If the Q4 speed does not reach even 4%, it would be difficult for the Chinese economy to achieve its growth at 4% for the full year, in the opinion of
He Jun, Director of Macro-Economy Research Center and Senior Researcher at ANBOUND.
>>Wei Hongxu, economist at ANBOUND, noted that the slowdown in the growth of residents' income and the increase in uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 outbreaks in China have led to a continuous decline in the growth of consumer demand. The downward personal credit has also caused an insufficient increase in social financing. For private enterprises, various uncertain factors such as the pandemic have made corporate investment rather conservative and reduced financing needs. Both the residential sector and the private sector have stepped into "shrink the balance sheet". In the past two years, there have been such signs emerged. Although the cost of financing has dropped, the willingness to actively raise funds is not strong. Would it be consumption or investment? The main challenge for China is to stabilize the demand in the coming period.
>> ThoughtLab, one of ANBOUND’s research partners, joined forces with a broad coalition of business, government, and academic leaders to provide city leaders with a blueprint for future success. At the Barcelona Smart City Expo World Congress, titled
Building a Future-Ready City, the newly released study findings show what it means to be future-ready, and what cities need to do to get there. The top areas where future-ready cities reporting having made the most progress include (1) driving digital transformation; (2) building resilience and agility; (3) using technology and data to improve decision-making; (4) adapting to citizen needs around health and safety; (5) building trust and transparency; (6) empowering communities and citizens; and (7) building global economic, political and trade connections. Of the 200 cities participating in the study, the top 10 most future-ready cities are Tokyo, Hangzhou, Helsinki, Tallin, Taipei, Durham, Aberdeen, Sapporo, Boulder, and Madrid. The study shows there is a general alignment between city leaders and citizens, but also some major gaps. Both see climate change as the greatest challenge facing cities and agree on the need for major urban transformation. They concur that affordable housing, homelessness, and public health should be high on urban agendas. But citizens see inadequate infrastructure, income inequality, and, particularly, low trust in government, as bigger problems than cities care to admit. To Download this document, click
here.