The Knowledge to Decide

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently took a policy leap by launching its own Quantitative Easing (QE) program – a bond purchasing policy to inject new money to revive the Eurozone’s economy. Will it work? Leon Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting shared his insights in The Business Times – Views from the top section on the effectiveness of the QE program. With the launch of the QE program, the ECB hopes to boost economic growth and check deflation. This will be achieved through the purchase of both government and private sector bonds worth €60 billion from March 2015 until September 2016. Perera commented that, while better than nothing, the ECB’s QE program is small in comparison with the scale of the problem facing Europe. It will most likely have to be increased and sustained for some time before any results are seen. Moreover, the ECB runs the risk of trading short-term quantity for long-term quality of growth. This is due to the reduced

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) aims for regional economic integration this year. What implications will it have on the burgeoning ASEAN business environment? Leon Perera, Chief Executive Officer of Spire Research and Consulting, shared his insights in the Asian version of Japan’s Nikkei newspaper. As the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries liberalize trade in line with AEC goals, the ASEAN economic landscape is changing. Many of the goals of the AEC in terms of liberalizing trade in goods have already been realized ahead of the 2015 deadline. This has helped to build up a positive momentum for the AEC project. This will also stimulate some restructuring of manufacturing activities in the region going forward. However the progress towards AEC goals in terms of freeing up human resources and services is lagging. It will take some years after 2015 before these are realized, due to the greater sensitivity of changes in these spheres. However, Perera ca